THE  LEADERSHIP 
OF  CONGRESS 


THE  LEADERSHIP 
OF  CONGRESS 


By 

George  Rothwell  Brown 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
BY  THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


-"Wv 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH  &  CO 

BOOK  MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN,   N.   Y. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    CONGRESSIONAL  POWER 1 

II    THE  SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP    .  22 

III  GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY 39 

IV  THE   INEVITABLE   CONFLICT 53 

V    THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP    ....  71 

VI  THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED 84 

VII  DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM 97 

VIII    ROOSEVELT   AND    CONGRESS 110 

IX    THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE    ...  127 

X    THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910 143 

XI    THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP  172 

XII    INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  IN  WASHINGTON  188 

XIII  HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE    ....  225 

XIV  THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION 252 

XV    THE  HOUSE  AND  THE_  PEOPLE    ....  283 

INDEX  301 


ERRATA 

Page  142,  line  8,  for  Gallagher  read  Gallinger 
"  247,  "  22,  for  chairman  read  chairmen 
"  301,  "  13,  for  Maecenas  E.,  read  Thomas  H. 

"     303,    "    10,  for  Congressional  Dictionary  read  Con- 
gressional Directory 

"     308,  after  Randolph,  Peyton,  8,  9,  10,  insert  Ransdell, 
Joseph  E.,  169 

"     309,  line    9,  for  Robinson,  Ransdell,  read  Robinson, 
Joseph  T. 


THE  LEADERSHIP 
OF  CONGRESS 


THE  LEADERSHIP 
OF  CONGRESS 

CHAPTER  I 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER 


..::,.. 

•   A   .ifO! 


THE  transition  period  in  the  history  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  which  began  with 
McKinley's  Buffalo  speech  heralding  a  new  era  and 
ended  with  the  reaction  following  the  World  War,  was 
characterized  by  a  psychological  revolt  against  the 
coercive  pressure  of  the  party  system  upon  minds  liber- 
alized by  a  new  conception  of  political  morality. 

Institutions  as  old  as  the  republic  itself  were  swept 
away  and  fundamental  structures  of  the  state  were 
altered  or  destroyed.  Indirectly  the  relationship  of 
Congress  to  the  Executive  was  changed  as  well  as  that 
of  the  Senate  to  the  House. 

The  influences  which  in  this  period  arrested  and 
checked  those  tendencies  in  government  which  for 
a  century  and  a  quarter  had  given  form  to  its  organism 
were  the  freeing  of  the  elective  processes  through  the 
introduction  of  the  direct  primary  system,  the  enfran- 
chisement of  women,  the  challenge  to  party  absolutism 
by  the  progressive  movement,  the  direct  election  of 
United  States  Senators,  and  the  utter  annihilation  of 
the  power  of  the  speakership  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. 

Of  these  changes,  the  two  which  thus  profoundly 

1 


2     THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

affected  the  leadership  of  Congress  in  the  national  poli- 
tical life  were  the  most  significant.  An  amazing  in- 
crease in  the  egoism  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
a  remarkable  development  of  its  sense  of  independence, 
both  with  regard  to  the  Executive  and  to  the  Senate, 
and  :a  consolidation  of  its  powers  such  as  the  old  re- 
gime 'had'  iie.ver  known  were  among  the  striking  phe- 
{iiphiens,  accompanying  the  readjustment,  under  the  Re- 
publican party,  necessitated  by  the  reform  which  had 
sought  to  obliterate  power  in  that  body.  A  system  of 
secret  government  in  the  House  whose  existence  was 
unknown  to  the  people  took  the  place  of  that  which, 
standing  out  with  vivid  distinctness,  had  governed  from 
Clay  to  Cannon  indifferent  to  hostile  assault  from  with- 
out. 

As  the  Senate  began,  in  the  period  of  readjustment 
which  opened  with  the  administration  of  Mr.  Harding, 
to  adapt  itself  imperfectly  and  clumsily  to  the  condi- 
tions of  its  changed  estate,  the  new  House  went  for- 
ward with  an  impetuosity  which  promised  to  lift  it  to 
a  distinction  which  it  had  not  enjoyed  since  the  first 
few  years  of  its  existence,  when  it  was  not  inferior  to, 
but  superior  to,  the  Senate,  as  the  great  forum  of  the 
people;  while  there  were  not  lacking  indications  that 
the  Senate  might  become  merely  a  semi-judicial  body, 
charged  with  functions  concerning  the  confirmation  of 
appointments,  the  ratification  of  treaties,  and  the  trial 
of  cases  in  impeachment  proceedings,  unless  the  people 
should  themselves  save  it  by  sending  there  the  best 
brains  and  character  in  the  nation,  since  in  any  par- 
liament composed  of  two  bodies  elected  directly  by  the 
people  and  responsible  to  the  people,  the  one  most 
strongly  endowed  with  organic  prerogatives  must  nec- 
essarily overshadow  and  weaken  the  other. 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  3 

In  order  to  understand  how  these  two  fundamental 
departures  from  the  original  American  plan  of  govern- 
ment have  changed  the  relationship  of  Congress  to  the 
President,  and  to  the  people,  and  of  the  two  Houses  to 
each  other,  and  have  introduced  wholly  new  factors  into 
the  leadership  of  Congress,  it  is  necessary  to  examine 
the  historical  past.  The  speakership  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  of  the  American  Congress,  devel- 
oped as  an  instrumentality  of  government,  was  an 
institution  whose  germ  was  inherited  by  the  people, 
through  their  Colonial  Assemblies, 'from  their  Anglo- 
Saxon  ancestors,  who  had  wrung  it  as  a  concession 
from  reluctant  royalty.  It  was  nurtured  in  the  very 
cradle  of  liberty. 

>^Uuring  a  period  of  growth  of  more  than  a  century 
the  office  became  in  power  second  only  to  the  presi- 
dency. Its_de^lxiidJfin_Jn_1910  constitutes  the  most 
important  fact  in  American  political  history  since  they'' 
compromise  with  respect  to  the  election  of  Senators 
wjjjch  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 
t  The  early  Colonial  Speakers  were  the  political  leaders 
of  their  time.  The  offices  they  held  at  the  head  of  the 
popular  branches  of  the  legislative  bodies  became  the 
repositories  of  those  rights  and  privileges,  slowly 
gained  from  the  Crown,7 which,  in  the  aggregate,  con- 
stituted the  Magna  Charta  of  the  people.  The  Ameri- 
can Congress  was  modeled  upon  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, the  House  of  Representatives  upon  the  House 
of  Commons,  which,  as  far  back  as  1376,  had  given 
the  title  of  Speaker  to  its  presiding  officer ;  the  Senate, 
through  the  Colonial  Councils,  upon  the  House  of 
Lords;  but  both,  in  the  processes  of  change,  in  a 
new  environment,  and  in  an  atmosphere  electrical  with 
the  spirit  of  freedom,  under  conditions  singularly  con- 


4     THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ducive  to  the  propagation  of  the  idea  of  human  rights, 
were  stamped  with  the  indelible  impress  of  the  Ameri- 
can genius  for  self-government. 

In  the  Colonial  Assemblies  the  title  of  Speaker  was 
given  to  the  presiding  officers,  and  the  leaders  in  the 
struggle  for  independence,  some  of  whom  had  borne  it, 
carried  the  traditions,  functions  and  powers  of  the 
speakership  into  the  Colonial  conventions,  state  legis- 
latures, and  the  federal  government  which  they 
founded. 

''The  initial  effort  to  establish  in  America  a  free 
representative  government  was  made  in  1619,  when 
the  first  legislative  body  to  be  convened  in  Virginia 
assembled^<By  1628  the  Assembly  was  legally  recog- 
nized by  the  King.  The  legislature  was  composed  of 
the  Governor,  Council  and  the  representatives  of  the 
people^fhe  committee  system  in  Congress  is  inherited  ' 
from  the  Colonial  Assemblies,  Some  of  whose  commit- 
tees bore  names  which  are  still  in  the  nomenclature 
of  the  congressional  committees  of  to-day.  From  the 
same  fresh  sources  of  American  inspiration  came  also 
the  tradition  of  the  great  and  necessary  powers  of  the 
Speaker,  the  "previous  question,"  and  the  basic  rules, 
of  parliamentary  procedure.  The  early  Colonial 
Speakers  had  the  power  of  the  appointment  of  com- 
mittees, and  were  themselves  members  of  important 
committees.  The  Speaker  of  the  Pennsylvania  legis- 
lature was  exercising  a  considerable  power  at  an  early 
date.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules, 
and  was  also  a  member  of  other  committees.  His 
activities  were  not  confined  to  the  Chair  or  to  commit- 
tees, but  extended  to  the  floor.  "As  early  as  1687  he 
began  to  acquire  the  appointment  of  committees,  a 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  5 

privilege  which  was  entirely  vested  in  him  by  rule  in 
1701."* 

Through  the  Colonial  period  the  power  and  influ- 
ence of  the  Speakers  of  the  popular  branches  of  the 
legislatures  steadily  increased.  These  officers  were 
close  to,  and  frequently  controlled,  the  Colonial  rev- 
enues. They  bore  the  brunt  of  controversies  with  the 
governors  appointed  by  the  Crown,  and  were  not  infre- 
quently ambassadors  of  the  Assemblies  to  London. 
They  stood  between  the  people  and  their  local  govern- 
ments, and  the  powers  of  the  royal  government.  In 
North  Carolina  a  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  represent- 
ing that  body  in  England,  was  named  as  governor.  The 
temperament  and  political  necessities  of  the  people 
combined  to  make  the  Colonial  Speaker  a  party  leader, 
as  in  Virginia,  and  when  the  powers  and  functions  of 
his  office  were  transferred  to  the  state  legislatures, 
that  quality  of  leadership  was  transmitted  also.  It 
is  one  of  the  marked  tendencies  in  the  development  of 
civil  government  in  the  United  States. 

In  Virginia  the  political  history  of  the  Colony  was 
largely  the  story  of  the  contest  by  the  Burgesses 
against  Governor  and  Council.  Gradually  the  lower 
House  gained  in  power  which  steadily  increased,  partly 
because  with  sure  instinct  it  held  tightly  to  the  purse. 
Before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  House 
had  all  the  necessary  officers,  including  a  speaker,  the 
clerk,  the  sergeant-at-arms,  the  doorkeeper,  the  chap- 
lain ;  and  the  various  committees.  /  The  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Burgesses  was  not  an  appointive  officer 
representing  the  Crown,  but  was  elected  by  the 

Congressional  Committees,  by  Lauros  G.  McConachie, 
Ph.D. 


6  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Assembly.  He  drew  his  strength,  not  from  the  royal 
authority,  but  directly  from  the  people;  to  them  he 
owed  his  obligations.  The  Speaker  of  the  Virginia 
Assembly  was  especially  strong  and  influential  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  also  during  the  Protectorate. 
He  was  not  subject  to  the  royal  Governor.  He  was 
the  legislative  leader  of  a  people  in  whom  all  the  in- 
stincts of  liberty  were  manifest. 

"The  House  was,  according  to  a  contemporary  writ- 
ing about  1700,*  a  great  restraint  'upon  both  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  for  many  years,  till  about  1680.' >! 

The  House  had  full  power  over  appropriations, 
and,  although  usually  the  Council  was  requested  to 
concur  in  its  decisions  as  to  public  claims,  it  virtually 
decided  all  such  matters.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
there  were  struggles  between  the  Burgesses,  and  a 
coalition  between  the  royal  Governor  and  the  Council, 
but  these  attempts  to  check  the  increasing  power  of 
the  popular  branch  of  the  legislative  assembly  failed, 
as  in  the  case  of  Governor  Dinwiddie,  whose  adminis- 
trative policy  having  been  imperiled  by  such  a  course, 
found  that  "coercion  had  to  be  abandoned  and  concili- 
ation and  compromise  adopted  in  order  to  secure 
appropriations."! 

The  Virginia  Assembly  steadily  broadened  its 
functions,  even  encroaching  upon  the  Governor.  "The 
House  increased  its  power  by  combining  with  its  con- 
trol over  finances  the  appointment  of  the  Treasurer  of 
the  Colony.  From  1691  the  Treasurer  was  appointed 
by  the  House,  and  for  sixty-seven  years  (1699-1766), 


*The  Royal  Government  in  Virginia,  by  Percy  Scott  Flip- 
pin,  Ph.  D.,  p.  202. 
f/6td.,  p.  205. 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  7 

the  Speaker  of  the  House  held  the  office.  In  1757 
John  Robinson,  the  Speaker-Treasurer,  used  his  power 
against  Dinwiddie  by  lending  the  public  funds  to  cer- 
tain members  of  the  House  in  order  to  secure  their 
votes.  Thus  Dinwiddie  was  nominally  Governor  but 
could  not  interfere  with  Robinson,  whose  influence  was 
very  great."* 

Governor  Fauquier,  in  1761,  declined  to  interfere 
with  the  dual  power  of  the  Speaker,  and  in  a  letter 
to  the  Board  of  Trade  referred  to  the  Speaker  as  the 
"darling  of  the  country."  In  this  letter  he  admitted 
that  the  Speaker  was  the  most  influential  man  in  the 
Colony. 

It  was  through  no  accident  that  the  Speaker  of 
the  Virginia  Assembly  became  the  most  powerful  man 
in  the  Colony.  Although  John  Robinson  was  the 
acknowleged  head  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  the  power 
was  inherent  in  the  scheme  of  government.  Robinson 
held  the  speakership  for  a  quarter  of  a  century;  and 
was  Treasurer  also,  not  by  virtue  of  royal  appointment, 
but  through  his  elevation  to  that  office  by  the  Assembly 
itself.  Notwithstanding  his  close  alliance  with  the 
court,  "his  personal  influence,  in  every  class  of  society, 
was  very  great;  and  he  held  that  influence  by  a  ten- 
ure far  superior  to  any  that  his  own  vast  wealth  or 
the  power  of  the  Crown  could  confer."f 

It  was  in  challenging  the  enormous  power  of  the 
speakership  that  Patrick  Henry  enhanced  the  distinc- 
tion he  had  won  in  connection  with  the  resolutions  of 
the  Virginia  Assembly  of  1765,  concerning  the  Stamp 
Act.  Robinson  was  dead,  discoveries  of  his  delm- 


*The  Royal  Government  in  Virginia,  p.  212. 
•\Life  of  Patrick  Henry,  by  William  Wirt,  p.  62. 


8  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

quincies  as  Treasurer  had  come  to  light,  and  "it  was 
considered  by  the  patriots  in  the  House*  as  a  measure 
of  sound  policy,  to  take  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Speaker 
so  formidable  an  engine  of  corruption  and  power  as 
the  Treasury  of  the  Colony.  A  motion  was  therefore 
made  to  separate  the  office  of  Treasurer  from  the 
Speaker's  Chair,  which  was  supported  by  Mr.  Henry 
with  his  usual  ability.  An  arduous  struggle  ensued. 
.  .  .  This  union  of  the  Speaker's  Chair  with  the 
office  of  Treasurer  was  one  of  those  errors  in  policy 
which  time  had  consecrated.  .  .  .  The  motion 
for  separating  the  two  offices  being  carried,  a  com- 
mittee was  appointed  to  examine  the  accounts  of  the 
late  Treasurer,  and  their  report  disclosed  an  enormous 
deficit,  exceeding  a  hundred  thousand  pounds." 

Thus  at  the  very  beginning  was  sounded  an  ominous 
note  touching  the  excessive  power  of  the  speakership. 
Peyton  Randolph,  who  had  been  the  King's  Attor- 
ney-General, was  advanced  to  the  Chair.f  Under  him 
the  speakership  was  to  be  lifted  to  a  sublime  height 
of  power  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  people  and  to 
the  cause  of  their  liberty.  On  May  16,  1769,  the 
House  of  Burgesses  adopted  resolutions  against  send- 
ing to  England  for  trial  any  person  charged  with 
crime  or  felony,  contrary  to  "long  established  course 
of  proceeding."  Other  resolutions  of  protest  against 
taxation  acts  of  Parliament  were  adopted,  and  the 
Assembly  was  dissolved  by  the  Governor.  The  Bur- 
gesses met  in  a  private  house  and  resolutions  request- 
ing redress  of  grievances  were  adopted,  and  were 
signed,  among  others,  by  Peyton  Randolph,  the 

*Life  of  Patrick  Henry,  by  William  Wirt,  p.  87. 
fSession  of  1766. 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  9 

Speaker;  George  Washington,  Richard  Henry  Lee  and 
Thomas  Jefferson.  In  November  following  the  Assem- 
bly advised  that  all  acts  of  Parliament  imposing  taxes 
should  be  repealed.  The  British  government  very 
early  adopted  the  policy  of  leaving  the  support  of  the 
Colonial  governments  to  their  respective  Assemblies, 
and  "there  were  many  occasions  when  it  became  nec- 
essary for  the  Governor  of  Virginia  to  call  upon  the 
Assembly  for  appropriations  of  money  and  supplies. 
No  taxation  within  the  Colony  was  legal  without  the 
consent  of  the  Assembly."*  The  Assembly  had  firmly 
fixed  this  principle  by  passing  at  different  times,  from 
1624  to  1680,  acts  declaring  that  the  House  alone  had 
the  power  to  levy  taxes. 

It  was  under  the  leadership  of  Speaker  Randolph 
that  Mr.  Dabney  Carr,  on  March  12,  1773,  brought 
into  the  Burgesses  the  resolutions  proposing,  as  Mas- 
sachusetts had  suggested  them  at  almost  the  same 
time,  the  "Correspondence  Committees"  between  the 
legislative  bodies  of  the  different  Colonies.  The 
Speaker  of  the  House  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
Virginia  committee  of  eleven,  his  associates  being 
Robert  C.  Nicholas,  Richard  Bland,  Richard  Henry 
Lee,  Benjamin  Harrison,  Edmund  Pendleton,  Patrick 
Henry,  Dudley  Digges,  Dabney  Carr,  Archibald  Gary 
and  Thomas  Jefferson. 

The  order  directed  the  Speaker  to  transmit  the 
resolutions  "to  the  Speakers  of  the  different  assemblies 
of  the  British  Colonies  on  the  continent."  Thus  it 
was  through  the  Speakers  of  the  legislatures  that  the 
life-giving  impulses  of  the  Colonial  governments  were 
carried  into  the  blood-stream  of  the  Continental  Con- 

*The  Royal  Government  in  Virginia,  p.  209. 


10          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

gress,  and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  The 
Virginia  delegation  shortly  thereafter  appointed  to 
attend  a  general  congress  of  all  the  Colonies,  was  com- 
posed in  the  order  named,  of  Peyton  Randolph,  Rich- 
ard Henry  Lee,  George  Washington,  Patrick  Henry, 
Richard  Bland,  Benjamin  Harrison  and  Edmund 
Pendleton. 

The  First  Continental  Congress — the  beginning  of 
American  union — meeting  in  Carpenters'  Hall,  in  the 
city  of  Philadelphia,  on  September  5,  1774,  chose  as 
its  president  Mr.  Randolph,  perhaps  the  best-known 
Speaker  of  any  of  the  Colonial  Assemblies.  Guided  by 
that  safe  instinct  which  has  so  often  prompted  them, 
the  American  people,  in  their  first  national  coming-to- 
gether, looked  for  leadership  in  a  legislative  body 
created  by  the  will  of  the  citizenship. 

.  The  Speaker  of  the  Colonial  Assembly  had  been  the 
spokesman  of  the  people,  standing  between  them  and 
the  royal  authority.  For  their  own  protection  they 
clothed  him  with  the  aggregate  power  they  could  com- 
mand. His  functions  were  necessarily  those  of  a  legis- 
lative character,  and  coming  to  the  Chair  as  he  did, 
not  from  the  Crown,  but  from  the  people,  he  had  none 
of  the  attributes  of  the  Executive.,/  His  responsibility 
was  wholly  to  the  people  and  the  power  with  which 
he  was  clothed  to  enable  him  to  meet  his  obligation 
was  the  power  of  the  people  and  not  the  power  of 
the  head  of  the  state. 

The  theory  of  the  speakership  was  thus  introduced 
into  the  American  system,  under  the  Constitution,  as 
a  distinct  American  conception.  In  the  national  House 
of  Representatives,  for  just  an  even  hundred  years, 
from  Clay  to  Cannon,  the  steady  tendency  was  toward 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  11 

the  idealization  of  this  conception.  The  political  in- 
stincts developed  during  the  Colonial  period  were  inten- 
sified during  the  era  which  was  devoted  to  the  consoli- 
dation of  the  victories  which  had  been  won  for  liberty 
through  the  development  of  the  theory  of  representa- 
tive Democracy. 

'-The  development  of  the  speakership  gave  to  the 
legislative  function  a  strong  sense  of  direction/  It  per- 
mitted of  the  slow  and  safe  crystallization  of  opinion 
into  policy.  It  was  conservative,  a  check  upon  radical- 
ism at  a  time  of  experiment  in  government. 

Experience  reduced  the  theory  into  a  formula,  and 
it  became  an  accepted  canon  of  political  law  that  in 
the  American  legislative  system  responsibility  must  be 
aceompanied  by  power,  in  order  that  those  resting 
under  the  necessity  of  action  be  provided  with  the 
means  to  act. 

/tinder  the  Constitution  the  House,  unlike  the  Sen- 
ate, is  not  a  continuing  body;  but  whatever  it  may  be 
in  theory,  in  actual  practise,  through  custom,  tradition 
and  the  gradual  perpetuation  of  the  power  of  organ- 
ized leadership,  usually  gathered  into  the  hands  of  men 
of  exceptional  strength  of  character  and  long  years  of 
service,  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  course  of  a 
century  came  to  take  on  a  character,  in  this  respect, 
practically  analogous  to  that  of  the  Senate.  An  un- 
written law  of  seniority  in  committee  membership  in 
the  House  came  to  be  recognized.  The  committee  or- 
ganization gradually  solidified  through  the  perpetuation 
of  place  through  longevity  of  service;  the  new  blood 
drawn  each  year  into  the  House  was  filtered  in  im- 
perceptibly. When  the  control  by  the  Speaker  of 
committees,  through  the  appointive  power,  was  en- 


12          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

hanced  by  the  domination  he  acquired  over  legislation 
through  mastery  of  the  functioning  organism  of  the 
House,  his  sway  became  absolute.  More  than  a  hun- 
dred years  were  required  for  the  perfection  of  this 
system,  a  system  which  bred  revolt  at  the  very 
moment  at  which  it  had  lifted  the  business  of  Con- 
gress to  the  highest  point  of  efficiency  that  it  had  ever 
attained  and  which  fell  in  the  end  because,  in  the  very  • 
process  of  reaching  perfection  as  an  instrument  of 
government,  it  sacrificed  flexibility  to  efficiency. 

'The  speakership  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
during  the  period  of  its  aggrandizement,  from  1811  to 
1911,  did  not,  however,  become  a  personal  political  dic- 
tatorship. The  Speaker  maintained  his  high  position  in 
the  House  and  at  times  extended  his  influence  over  the 
Senate  and  the  Executive,  as  the  recognized  leader  of 
the  majority;  but  not  even  Thomas  B.  Reed,  in  some 
respects  the  most  masterful  occupant  the  Chair  has 
had,  could  force  the  House  into  an  action  contrary  to  its 
will,  and  the  will  of  the  country,  on  any  major  ques- 
tion vitally  affecting  the  people  as  a  whole.  No  Speaker 
ever  reached  a  point  of  power  which  put  him  above 
the  law  of  public  opiniony  The  "Czar  of  the  House" 
could  not  prevent  the  war  with  Spain  or  the  annexa- 
tion of  Hawaii. 

The  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
grew  in  strength  as  the  servant  of  the  people,  not 
their  master.  In  the  destruction  of  the  power  which 
they  themselves  had  conferred  upon  him,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  annihilated  an  instrument  of 
government  which  had  grown  out  of  their  own  inherv 
ent  genius  for  government  through  delegated  authority. 
No  more  paradoxical  action  has  ever  been  committed 


13 

by  the  American  people  than  in  the  destruction 
of  the  power  of  the  speakership  in  the  name  of 
popular  liberty^/  It  is  the  paradox  which  has  obscured 
the  basic  principle  of  government  involved — that  with 
responsibility  there  must  be  power — and  confused  the 
public  perception  of  what  a  radical  alteration  in  the 
relationships  of  the  constitutional  functions  of  the 
government  grew  out  of  the  obliteration  of  the  sec- 
ond highest  office  under  the  federal  system.  During 
the  century  of  political  construction  from  1811  to  1911, 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  became,  in  the  conflicts  of 
parties  which  involved  not  only  policies  of  govern- 
ment but  interpretations  of  the  organic  law,  a  leader 
who  either  functioned  in  close  harmony  with  the  Presi- 
dent, or  led  the  House  in  resistance  to  executive  en- 
croachment. 

The  strength  of  the  speakership  was  established 
up*;?,  the  rules  which  concentrated  the  power  of  the 
House  in  his  hands,  and  the  vigorous  growth  of  that 
body  at  certain  times  was  responsible  for  the  tendency 
toward  the  gradual  sacrifice  of  the  individual  to  the 
party. 

No  legislative  assembly  could  meet  the  increasing 
needs  of  a  great  nation  in  a  period  of  political,  eco- 
nomic and  social  transition  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  without  constant  readjustments. 
The  House  sought  with  every  change  in  national  con- 
ditions to  respond  to  the  new  obligations  laid  upon  it. 
The  Senators  and  Representatives  who  attended  the 
sessions  of  the  First  Congress  traveled  to  New  York 
by  stage-coach  and  on  horseback,  those  living  at  remote 
distances  being  weeks  upon  the  way.  Some  of  those 
who  sat  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  went  to  Wash- 


14          THE  LEADEESHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ington  by  airplane,  in  a  few  hours.  Delegates  at- 
tended from  the  West  Indies,  from  the  frozen  Arctic, 
and  from  the  distant  outposts  of  American  civilization 
in  the  mid-Pacific  and  the  Far  East.  Members  keep  in 
communication  with  their  constituencies  by  the  tele- 
graph and  the  radio,  and  what  they  may  do,  or  may  fail 
to  do,  is  of  such  interest,  not  only  to  the  hundred  and 
more  millions  of  their  own  countrymen,  but  to  peoples 
of  the  earth  who  may  never  have  heard  of  their  exis- 
tence, that  their  words  are  flashed  around  the  world 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  Every  new  invention 
springing  from  the  mind  of  man  adds  to  their  consti- 
tutional labors.  They  regulate  the  affairs  of  the  gro- 
cer behind  his  counter,  the  physician  in  his  labora- 
tory, and  the  diplomatist  in  his  closet.  They  adjust 
the  relationships  of  the  nation  with  organized  capital 
and  organized  labor.  The  scope  of  their  authority  ia 
extended  to  the  unexplored  regions  of  space,  where 
not  even  the  eagle  may  follow  the  winged  man, 
and  they  prescribe  the  rules  to  govern  the  use  of 
airships  and  the  wave  lengths  in  wireless  communi- 
cations under  a  power  conferred  upon  them  by  the 
Constitution  a  century  before  Langley  and  Mar- 
coni. They  appropriate  the  peoples'  money  for 
purposes  of  which  the  founders  of  the  republic 
had  no  conception.  They  levy  taxes  for  an  expendi- 
ture so  vast  that  the  mind  which  authorizes  them  can 
not  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  figures  with  which  it 
deals. 

As  the  activities  of  the  people  increased,  and  as 
the  need  grew  for  new  laws,  and  new  kinds  of  laws, 
to  control  the  mighty  forces  set  in  motion  by  inven- 
tion, discovery  and  the  expansion  of  social  and  eco- 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  15 

nomic  life,  the  House  of  Representatives  protected  the 
interests  of  the  people  by  increasing  its  own  ability 
to  serve  them.  This  could  be  done  only  through  the 
sacrifice  of  the  power  of  the  individual  Member  to 
the  general  good.  The  single  Representative  volun- 
tarily transferred  from  himself  to  an  organization  in 
whose  creation  he  participated  a  part  of  his  authority 
as  a  Member  of  the  House,  in  order  that  the  House 
might  transact  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  busi- 
ness with  the  maximum  of  efficiency  and  justice. 
Otherwise  the  American  experiment  in  representative 
government  would  have  failed. 

It  necessarily  happened  that  such  a  delegation  of 
power  involved  a  real  sacrifice.  The  individual  Mem- 
ber suffered  loss  of  prestige  and  influence  in  acquies- 
cing in  a  policy  which  restricted  the  exercise  of  his 
own  will;  but  although  he  might  thus  suffer  to  the 
extent  that  he  could  not  look  for  action  upon  all  the 
measures  in  which  he  was  most  interested,  he  gained 
in  the  assurance  which  he  received  in  return  that,  in 
so  far  as  practicable,  there  would  be  action  upon  a 
part  of  those  measures  in  which  he  was  concerned, 
both  as  the  representative  of  a  constituency,  and  as 
a  prospective  candidate  for  reelection  to  his  seat,  and 
thus  largely  dependent,  for  his  political  future,  upon 
the  enactment  into  statutes  of  bills  calculated  to  en- 
hance his  prospects  at  the  polls.  It  early  became 
clear  that  there  was  not  sufficient  time  in  any  session 
of  Congress  for  the  enactment  into  law  of  all  the  bills 
introduced  by  the  membership.  The  question,  then, 
to  be  determined,  was  how  the  selection  was  to  be 
made  of  those  comparatively  few  measures  to  be  given 
preference,  and  into  whose  hands  should  be  placed 


16         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  authority  to  make  that  selection,  in  the  interest 
of  the  country,  of  the  individual,  and  of  the  party. 

This  authority  was  absorbed  by  the  Speaker,  and 
actually  was  exercised  by  a  coterie  of  men,  of  long 
experience  and  sound  training,  and  proved  devotion  to 
the  party  interest,  who  generally  came  into  the  con- 
trol of  the  majority,  and  hence  of  the  House,  through 
intellectual  ability  and  the  impregnability  of  position 
conferred  by  long  service. 

Congress  has  always  functioned  effectually  when  a 
majority  of  its  Members  have  been  actuated  by  con- 
mon  intellectual  impulses,  when  their  purposes  have 
been  identical  or  similar,  and  their  objectives  definite. 

Organized  leadership  in  the  House  prevented  dis- 
integration of  opinion,  and  tended  to  check  actions 
springing  from  imperfect  comprehension,  passion, 
selfishness  and  personal  idiosyncrasies.  This  organ- 
ized leadership  could  only  act  as  a  brake,  and  not 
until  after  a  century  of  growth  became  strong  enough 
to  throttle  those  fundamental  desires  of  the  people 
which  are  founded  upon  elemental  truth  and  justice. 
Although  the  individual  voluntarily  subordinated  him- 
self to  the  power  of  the  speakership  which  he  had 
created,  and  theoretically  could  change  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  House,  actually  the  system  which  grew  up 
tended  to  make  the  speakership  stronger  and  the  indi- 
vidual weaker. 

The  organization  of  the  House,  under  the  rigid 
system  of  party  government,  was  such  that  no  chair- 
man of  a  committee,  himself  a  creature  of  the  Chair, 
could  risk  the  inevitable  conflict  with  the  vast  power  of 
the  speakership  which  would  have  been  precipitated  by 
insubordination.  Hence  the  power  of  the  appointment 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  17 

r 

of  committees  came  to  carry  with  it  the  power  of  the 
i/  inner  organization,  headed  by  the  Speaker  and  his 
trusted  lieutenants,  to  determine  the  whole  of  a  legis- 
lative program  through  the  exercise  by  the  Speaker 
of  those  functions  conferred  upon  him  by  the  rules  of 
the  House. 

The  precedent  in  the  House  of  promotion  through 
seniority  on  the  various  committees,  which  gives  to 
that  body  a  character  with  respect  to  continuity  much 
like  the  Senate,  was  broken  by  the  Speaker,  in  organ- 
izing a  new  Congress,  when,  in  his  judgment,  the  pub- 
lic welfare  or  party  interest  required.  Thus  the 
whole  system  which  developed  in  the  House  was 
directed  primarily  toward  one  end — the  efficient  oper- 
ation of  the  majority  of  the  House  as  an  instru- 
mentality of  party  government  under  the  two-party 
system  required  by  the  Constitution.  It  was  a  plan 
which,  in  creating  and  concentrating  strength  in  the 
hands  of  the  few,  was  certain  to  arouse  the  vigorous 
opposition  of  men,  or  small  groups  of  men  endowed 
with  an  instinct  for  leadership  the  exercise  of  which 
was  denied,  with  intellectuality  and  ambition,  and 
restive  by  nature  and  temperamentally  antagonistic 
to  a  discipline  which  curtailed  individual  activity  and 
freedom  of  opinion. 

Since  it  was  precisely  for  the  purpose  of  meeting 
opposition  from  such  sources  that  the  rules  of  the 
House  granting  unusual  powers  to  the  Speaker  had 
been  adopted  in  the  beginning,  naturally  those  powers 
were  used  to  hold  such  forces  in  check. 

The  mind  of  the  House  tended  to  become  a  com- 
posite mind,  not  an  aggregation  of  individual  minds. 
Flagrant  abuses  of  the  power  in  overriding  the  rights 


18          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

of  minorities  were  generally  approved  by  the  major- 
ity of  the  House,  which  is  no  more  than  another  way 
of  stating  that  after  having  deliberately  adopted  cer- 
tain rules  of  procedure  knowing  that  through  them 
minority  opinion  would  be  sacrificed  to  the  common 
welfare  the  House  confirmed  this  action  whenever  the 
necessity  arose  which  required  choice  to  be  made  be- 
tween the  party  and  the  individual. 

This  strengthening  of  the  power  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  House  took  place  during  a  period  that 
was  marked  by  the  consideration  by  Congress  of 
measures  and  policies  involving  questions  of  the  great- 
est possible  concern  to  them  as  Members  of  the  House 
serving  under  solemn  oath  to  sustain  and  defend  the 
Constitution,  as  representatives  of  special  constitu- 
encies, acting  under  the  power  of  delegated  authority, 
and  as  American  citizens.  Hence  these  various  acts 
through  which  the  power  of  the  speakership  was  en- 
hanced were  done  in  the  name  of  the  institutions  of 
liberty.  It  was  naturally  true  that  the  organization 
was  of  greatest  importance  when  the  questions  pre- 
sented for  determination  by  the  House  were  the  most 
serious  in  import. 

The  House  steadily  fortified  itself  that  it  might  be 
able  to  serve  the  people  as  a  whole.  Modeled  as  it 
was  upon  the  institution  which  had  been  developed  in 
the  Colonial  Assemblies,  the  prestige  of  the  speaker- 
ship  was  still  further  enhanced,  during  a  long  period 
of  years,  by  the  fact  that  the  office  stood  third  in  the 
line  of  presidential  succession. 

Under  the  law  of  March  1,  1792,  which  had  been 
signed  by  President  Washington,  the  presidential  suc- 
cession devolved,  in  the  event  of  the  "removal,  death, 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  19 

resignation,  or  inability  both  of  the  President  and 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,"  upon  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Senate  pro  tempore,  and  the  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  in  the  order  named. 

The  Vice-President,  Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  died 
November  25,  1885,  before  the  meeting  of  the  Forty- 
Ninth  Congress.  No  President  pro  tempore  of  the 
Senate  had  been  elected  at  the  special  session  of  the 
Senate  following  the  close  of  the  Forty-Eighth  Con- 
gress, and  there  was  no  Speaker  of  the  House,  the 
Forty-Eighth  Congress  having  expired  by  limitation 
on  March  3,  1885.  Mr.  Carlisle  had  been  Speaker  of 
that  House,  and  at  the  December  session  of  the  Forty- 
Ninth  Congress  was  again  elected;  but  at  the  time 
of  the  death  of  Mr.  Hendricks  the  one  Congress  hav- 
ing expired  and  the  other  not  having  been  organized 
there  was  no  Speaker.  This  situation  disclosed  an 
obvious  weakness  in  the  act  of  1792,  and  President 
Cleveland  recommended  the  enactment  of  a  new  law, 
but  did  not  undertake  to  indicate  to  Congress  what  its 
provisions  should  be. 

A  bill,  originating  in  the  Senate,  was  passed,  ex- 
cluding the  President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate,  and 
the  Speaker  of  the  House,  from  the  succession,  and 
transferring  the  succession  to  the  Cabinet.  The  House 
accepted  the  Senate  bill,  and  thus  the  presidential  suc- 
cession was  taken  away  from  officers  of  the  govern- 
ment elected  by  the  people,  and  transferred  to  those 
owing  their  positions  to  presidential  appointment.  It 
can  not  be  doubted  that  a  serious  mistake  was  thus 
committed. 

The  act  of  1792  was  almost  coeval  with  the  Con- 
stitution and  had  been  sanctioned  by  time.  The  ques- 


20    THE  LEADEESHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tion  had  been  raised  by  Mr.  Madison  whether  the 
President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate,  and  the  Speaker 
of  the  House,  were  "officers  of  the  government,"  but 
such  doubts  as  he  may  have  entertained  were  shadowy. 
"Both  Roger  Sherman  and  Elbridge  Gerry  asserted 
the  position  that  the  President  pro  tempore  was  an 
officer  of  the  United  States,  and  the  latter  declared 
that  the  Speaker  of  the  House  had  equal  dignity."* 
About  1850  the  Senate  had  studied  the  question,  and 
the  committee  on  the  Judiciary,  in  response  to  a 
resolution  introduced  by  Senator  Crittenden,  made  a 
report  sustaining  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  of 
1792. 

When  the  succession  bill  was  under  consideration 
in  the  House  it  was  subjected  to  serious  criticism  on 
the  ground  that  it  vested  in  the  President  the  power 
to  perpetuate  his  party  in  the  presidency,  through 
the  medium  of  officials  not  elected  by  the  people  but 
appointed  by  the  Executive.f 

It  had  happened  twice,  up  to  1886  that  there  had 
been  occasions  when  the  contingency  arose  during  the 
interval  between  the  fourth  of  March  and  the  first 
Monday  in  December,  when  the  Senate  had  no  Presi- 
dent and  the  House  had  no  Speaker.  Upon  one  of  these 
occasions  the  President  was  assassinated;  upon  the 
other  the  Vice-President  died. 

During  the  debate,  William  McKinley,  perceiving 
the  necessity  for  perfecting  the  act  of  1792,  while 
believing  the  principle  it  contained  to  be  sound,  pro- 
posed a  significant  amendment  which  disclosed  his 


*Senate  Document,  104,  Sixty-Second  Congress,  first  ses- 
sion, p.  81. 

•^Congressional  Record,  Forty-Ninth  Congress,  first  session, 
p.  688. 


CONGRESSIONAL  POWER  21 

opinion  of  the  position  and  dignity  of  the  speakership. 
He  would  have  preserved  the  essential  feature  of  the 
succession  act  of  1792.  The  plan  which  he  offered 
proposed  that  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  in  the  presi- 
dency "the  President  of  the  Senate  pro  tempore,  or, 
if  there  be  none,  then  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  for  the  time  being  shall  act  as  Presi- 
dent until  the  disability  is  removed  or  a  President 
elected.  And  for  the  purpose  of  having  a  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  office  continuously, 
the  Congress  shall  convene  at  12  o'clock  M.  on  the 
fourth  day  of  March  next  succeeding  the  election  of 
Representatives  in  Congress;  and  whenever  a  vacancy 
exists  either  in  the  office  of  the  President  pro  tempore 
of  the  Senate,  or  Speaker  of  the  House,  the  Presi- 
dent shall  convene  the  House  in  which  the  vacancy 
exists  for  the  purpose  of  electing  a  presiding  officer."* 
Mr.  McKinley's  substitute  was  lost,  108  to  159, 
but  the  position  toward  the  Speaker  which  he  took 
was  warmly  supported  by  others,  and  there  was  a  con- 
siderable element  in  the  House  who  believed  that  the 
presidential  succession  should  be  kept  in  an  office 
whose  occupant  drew  his  power  directly  from  the 
people,  and  who  was  obliged  every  two  years  to  return 
to  the  people  to  answer  for  his  official  actions.  Al- 
though the  Speaker  of  the  House  was  held  to  be  an 
officer  of  the  United  States  he  was  only  one  Repre- 
sentative among  many,  and  was  responsible  to  the 
voters  of  his  own  district. 


*Congressional  Record,   Forty-Ninth   Congress,   first  ses- 
sion, p.  670. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SUPREMACY  OP  THE  SPEAKERSHIP 

THE  development  of  a  strong  instinct  for  party  gov- 
ernment in  the  House  of  Representatives  took  place 
slowly  over  a  long  period  of  time.  It  was  influenced 
by  many  spiritual  and  economic  reactions,  and  party 
solidarity  was  finally  accomplished  through  the  con- 
centration of  centralized  authority  in  the  hands  of 
an  organization  of  partisan  leaders.  While  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  was  not  invariably  the  most 
influential,  nor  the  ablest,  the  power  essential  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  party  system  was  lodged  in  his 
hands  through  the  gradual  strengthening  of  the  rules 
from  which  he  drew  his  vigor. 

Almost  from  the  beginning  the  increasing  pres- 
tige and  preponderance  of  the  Speaker  was  challenged 
in  the  House,  but  never  successfully  until  toward  the 
close  of  the  regime  of  Mr.  Speaker  Cannon,  when  the 
speakership  was  overthrown  as  one  of  the  innumer- 
able consequences  of  a  political  revolution  without  an 
exact  parallel  in  the  history  of  American  politics,  and 
as  the  result  of  an  expenditure  of  moral  forces  in  the 
country  which  were  directed  against,  not  merely  the 
Speaker,  nor  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  Con- 
gress as  a  whole,  the  Judiciary,  and  certain  long-estab- 
lished institutions  for  the  nomination  of  public  offi- 
cials elected  by  the  people,  and  which  accomplished, 

22 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP       23 

before  they  were  spent  and  dissipated,  radical  alter- 
ations in  the  machinery  of  legislative  government  the 
consequences  of  which  were  not  immediately  per- 
ceived by  those  who  advocated  these  changes  in  the 
name  of  reform. 

The  supremacy  of  the  speakership  prior  to  1910 
had  resulted  from  the  consolidation  in  the  office  of 
three  major  prerogatives,  and  when,  in  1910,  and  1911, 
the  House,  reacting  to  a  state  of  mind  in  the  country, 
sought  the  liberation  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the 
government  through  the  destruction  of  the  oligarchy 
which  supported,  and  was  supported  by,  the  domin- 
ant will,  with  unerring  instinct  it  accomplished  this 
purpose  by  depriving  the  Speaker  of  those  functions 
through  which  his  will  had  been  exercised. 

This  reform  was  brought  about  by  a  coalition 
formed  against  the  party  in  control  of  the  machinery 
of  the  House,  and  responsible  to  the  administration 
of  which  it  was  a  part  and  to  the  country  for  the 
orderly  conduct  of  the  business  of  government,  the 
coalition  being  between  a  small  and  dissatisfied  fac- 
tion within  the  majority,  and  the  minority.  It  was 
a  reform,  forced  upon  the  majority  party  contrary 
to  its  wishes,  which  was  in  violation  of  all  its  estab- 
lished and  accepted  precepts,  principles  and  tradi- 
tions, a  circumstance  of  the  utmost  psychological  im- 
portance in  its  bearing  upon  subsequent  developments. 

The  functions  of  which  the  speakership  was  de- 
prived were,  in  the  order  of  their  relative  importance 
to  the  maintenance  of  power  in  that  office,  the  right 
to  appoint  committees  of  the  House,  including  the 
Committee  on  Rules,  and  to  name  their  chairmen ;  the 
right  to  dominate  the  Committee  on  Rules  through  the 


24         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

exercise  of  authority  as  its  ex-offieio  chairman;  and 
the  power  of  recognition.  These  were  the  locks  of 
Samson.  When  they  were  shorn  the  Speaker  was 
changed  from  a  potent  leader  through  whom  the  will 
of  the  majority  was  brought  to  bear  upon  all  ques- 
tions presented  for  consideration,  discussion  and  set- 
tlement, to  an  impotent  and  inconsequential  moder- 
ator. It  had  taken  more  than  a  century  for  this 
strengthening  of  the  power  of  party  government 
through  organized  leadership  to  be  accomplished.  Its 
destruction  was  brought  about  eventually  at  a  moment 
of  intense  reaction,  when  men's  minds  everywhere 
were  susceptible  in  marked  degree  to  the  influences  of 
intellectual  unrest,  when  politics,  which  is  a  science, 
was  brought  within  the  sphere  of  emotionalism  almost 
religious  in  intensity  of  feeling,  and  when  the  blind 
instincts  of  abstract  morality  were  confusing  to  the 
practical  judgment  of  statesmen. 

This  new  manifestation  of  spiritual  emotionalism 
in  politics  stimulated  the  basic  political  instincts  of 
fear  and  selfishness.  In  a  state  of  mental  confusion 
bordering  on  hysteria,  the  House,  endeavoring  to  re- 
flect a  public  sentiment  in  the  country  which  had  im- 
perfectly crystallized,  extinguished  a  power  which  it 
had  itself  created  for  the  protection  of  the  liberties 
of  the  people,  and  which  for  a  hundred  years  had  been 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  people.  In  passionate 
eagerness  to  conform  to  a  popular  standard  of  politi- 
cal morality  masquerading  as  novelty,  the  House  con- 
ceived its  own  virtues  to  be  vices,  plead  guilty  to 
crimes  it  had  not  committed,  convicted  itself  upon  an 
indictment  drawn  by  an  irresponsible  minority,  and 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP       25 

slumped  into  a  psychological  condition  of  self- 
contempt. 

The  House  of  Representatives,  at  any  given  time, 
only  rarely  and  imperfectly  reflects  the  soul  of  the 
nation.  Its  intellectual  and  spiritual  level  is  usually 
below  or  above  that  of  the  constituencies  which  have 
elected  it,  and  this  is  necessarily  so  because  the  mind 
of  the  House  tends  to  become  a  composite  mind.  For 
this  reason,  also,  the  House  infrequently  keeps  step 
with  the  country.  It  either  lags  behind  the  country 
or  marches  well  in  advance. 

Numerous  factors  have  tended  to  shape  the  Ameri- 
can national  character  during  the  formative  period  of 
government,  when  the  people  were  thrown  upon  their 
own  resources  in  meeting  such  problems  as  no  peo- 
ple in  modern  times  had  been  called  upon  to  face,  and 
which  abnormally  stimulated  pride  and  exaggerated 
the  ego.  An  original  and  inherent  sense  of  caution, 
growing  out  of  the  basic  knowledge,  with  respect  to 
American  institutions  of  government  under  the  dual 
system  of  state  and  federal  control,  that  they  consti- 
tuted an  experiment  in  liberty;  a  climatic  condition 
which  has  made  Americans  the  most  nervous  and  emo- 
tional of  people;  the  undermining  influence  upon  the 
Colonial  stock  exerted  by  European  immigrants  and 
their  descendants  whose  traditions  went  back,  not  to 
Plymouth  and  Jamestown,  the  Revolution,  the  Consti- 
tutional Convention,  and  the  theories  of  Washington, 
Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  but  to  the  despotisms  and 
radicalisms  of  the  Old  World ;  a  race  question  to  which 
there  is  no  answer — all  these  things  had  played  their 
part  in  the  development  of  the  American  political 


mind.  Generally  the  tendency  on  the  part  of  the 
people  was  to  ignore  the  great  part  which  the  acci- 
dent of  natural  resources  had  played  in  the  success- 
ful establishment  of  a  free  democracy  in  America,  to 
overestimate  their  own  political  virtue  and  sagacity, 
and  to  develop  a  pride  which  hardened  into  a  national 
self-sufficiency.  The  biological  struggle  toward  the 
attainment  of  a  distinctive  race  type,  of  whose  suc- 
cess there  was  little  national  consciousness  until  the 
World  War  disclosed  how  perfectly  the  processes  of 
assimilation  had  functioned,  was  no  more  plainly 
marked  than  the  blind  groping  after  the  distinctive 
American  political  idea. 

The  structure  of  modern  government  in  America 
was  not  founded  upon  an  existing  civilization  but  was 
created  gradually  by  the  people  as  a  part  of  their 
daily  work  in  conquering  the  forests,  rearing  cities 
and  building  railroads.  Thus  government  and  poli- 
tics grew  out  of  economic  necessity,  and  the  making 
of  laws  was  incidental  to  the  making  of  a  nation.  The 
making  of  laws  requires  concerted  action  based  upon 
determined  policy,  and  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, as  in  legislative  bodies  generally,  power  Was 
conferred  upon  the  Speaker  in  intuitive  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  necessities  in  their  relation  to  his  respon- 
sibilities. It  was  a  power  founded  on  logic.  This 
was  true  from  the  beginning. 

The  rules  of  the  First  Congress,  adopted  April  1, 
1789,  provided  that  the  Speaker  of  the  House  should 
appoint  all  committees  except  such  as  consisted  of 
more  than  three  members,  which  were  to  be  chosen 
by  lot.*  But  on  January  13,  1790,  the  rules  were 

* Annals  of  Congress,  Volume  I,  pp.  98  to  102. 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP       27 

amended  to  provide  that  "all  committees  shall  be 
appointed  by  the  Speaker,  unless  otherwise  specially 
directed  by  the  House,  in  which  case  they  shall  be 
appointed  by  ballot."*  It  was  from  this  germ  of 
power  that  the  Speakers  of  the  House  developed  their 
domination  under  a  rigid  system  of  party  government, 
responsible  for  the  orderly  conduct  of  public  business 
through  the  will  of  the  majority,  in  accordance  with 
the  accepted  principles  of  the  American  theory. 

The  First  Congress  met  in  New  York  March 
4,  1789,  but  it  was  not  until  April  first  that  there  was 
a  quorum.  On  this  date  the  House  proceeded  to  trans- 
act its  first  business,  the  election  of  a  Speaker,  the 
choice  falling  upon  Frederick  Augustus  Muhlenberg, 
of  Pennsylvania,  in  which  state  a  strong  speakership 
had  been  developed  at  an  early  date.  Thus  the  United 
States  had  a  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
derived  from  the  popular  Assemblies  of  the  Colonial 
period,  before  it  had  a  President,  whose  origin  was  in 
the  royal  Councils. 

On  April  seventh,  Mr.  Boudinot,  from  the  com- 
mittee which  had  been  chosen  to  prepare  "such 
rules  and  orders  of  the  proceedings  as  may  be  proper 
to  be  observed  in  this  House,"  made  a  report  and  the 
first  rules  were  adopted,  specifically  including  the  de- 
liberate delegation  to  the  presiding  officer  of  that  great 
authority  which  was  to  lift  the  American  speakership 
to  a  place  of  power,  responsibility  and  dignity  in  the 
government  second  only  to  that  of  the  President,  and 
make  possible  a  magnificent  growth  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  as  the  champion  and  safeguard,  of 
liberty. 

*Hinds*  Precedents,  Section  4448. 


28 

A  living  organism,  expanding  naturally  and  surely 
to  meet  each  new  event  growing  out  of  the  experi- 
ment in  democratic  government,  the  House  found 
within  itself  the  power  to  meet  any  crisis  through  the 
instrumentality  of  its  own  rules,  under  the  broad  grant 
of  the  Constitution. 

In  the  choice  of  the  Speaker  and  the  adoption  of 
its  rules  no  restrictions  are  imposed  upon  the  House. 
The  Constitution  leaves  it  free  to  approach  the  con- 
structive work  of  legislation  which  is  its  special  func- 
tion. "The  House  of  Representatives,"  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  organic  law,  "shall  chuse  their  Speaker 
and  other  Officers;  and  shall  have  the  sole  Power  of 
Impeachment."  It  is  perhaps  not  so  singular  as  it  may 
seem  at  first  thought,  that  the  power  of  electing  the 
Speaker  and  the  power  of  impeachment  should  thus 
be  bound  up  together  in  a  single  clause.  The  two 
are  the  very  foundation  stones  of  a  free  legislative 
body.  The  House  is  not  even  required  by  the  Consti- 
tution to  choose  its  Speaker  from  its  own  membership, 
although  with  not  a  single  exception  this  has  been 
done.  The  early  practise,  dating  from  the  First  Con- 
gress, has  become  a  part  of  the  unwritten  law  of  the 
republic. 

It  was  perceived  at  the  outset  that  in  a  body  like 
the  House  of  Representatives  the  orderly  conduct  of 
the  government's  business  affairs  would  be  impossible 
without  powerful  restraints  upon  the  individual,  im- 
posed by  the  Members  themselves  in  subconscious 
appreciation  of  the  defects  in  a  legislative  system  the 
whole  tendency  of  which  is  to  excite  the  strongest  of 
human  passions  at  the  very  moment  when  the  exer- 
cise of  calm  judgment  is  most  essential.  Hence  the 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP      29 

interposition  of  stabilizing  authority  between  them- 
selves individually  and  the  constitutional  power  vested 
in  them  collectively  became  a  necessity. 

According  to  the  language  of  the  Constitution 
"each  House  may  determine  the  rules  of  its  proceed- 
ings." The  delegated  powers  granted  to  Congress 
under  Section  VIII  are  not  merely  power  conferred, 
but  they  are  obligations  laid  upon  Congress,  the  desig- 
nation of  acts  which  must  be  performed.  Obviously, 
if  Congress  declined  to  exercise  the  power  to  "lay  and 
collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the 
debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defense  and  general 
welfare  of  the  United  States,"  the  government  would 
cease  to  function ;  it  could  not  exist.  These  delegated 
powers,  therefore  are  not  merely  privileges,  which 
Congress  may  exercise  if  it  wishes,  or  decline  to  exer- 
cise if  it  so  desires,  but  are  sacred  duties  imposed 
upon  Congress. 

It  is  clear,  first  that  the  wording  of  the  clause 
which  states  that  each  House  "may"  determine  the 
rules  of  its  procedure  is  such  as  to  give  to  the  word 
"may"  the  meaning  of  "shall";  and  second  that  the 
powers  and  duties  of  Congress  are  inseparable;  that 
the  obligation  to  raise  money  and  pay  the  debts  of  the 
nation  could  not  be  avoided,  and  that,  therefore,  no 
Congress  could  justify  itself  before  the  people  for  in- 
ability to  function  which  had  rendered  itself  incapable 
of  functioning  through  failure  to  avail  itself  of  the 
constitutional  authority  to  provide  for  its  orderly  man- 
agement such  rules  as  might  be  necessary  to  the  full 
discharge  of  its  duties. 

For  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  in  nearly 
every  successive  Congress  the  House  of  Representa- 


30          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tives  scrupulously  observed  its  constitutional  obliga- 
tion, and  changed  its  rules  from  time  to  time,  strength- 
ening and  fortifying  them  to  meet  the  exigencies  pre- 
sented by  the  expansion  of  the  House  from  a  body  of 
sixty-five  members,  to  the  greatest  parliamentary 
assembly  on  earth,  with  a  membership  of  four  hun- 
dred thirty-five,  legislating  for  more  than  a  hundred 
millions  of  people.  Of  no  Congress  which  failed  to 
provide  adequately  for  the  "general  welfare"  of  the 
nation  in  consequence  of  the  adoption  of  imperfect 
rules,  could  it  be  said  that  it  functioned  in  accordance 
with  the  mandate  of  the  Constitution.  Hence  it  fol- 
lows that  of  no  Congress  which,  through  the  inade- 
quacy of  rules,  permitted  any  of  the  legislative  func- 
tions of  government  to  be  exercised,  openly  or  covertly, 
by  the  Executive,  could  it  be  said  that  it  had  not  sub- 
verted Section  1  of  Article  I  of  the  Constitution.  A 
weakening  of  the  rules  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives which  would  permit  this  would  be  subversive  of 
the  Constitution.  For  about  a  century  and  a  quarter, 
under  many  Speakers  and  various  leaders  of  different 
parties,  the  House  consistently  maintained  this 
supreme  right  to  carry  out  the  injunction  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  the  story  of  the  legislative  struggles 
of  Senate  and  House,  the  battles  fought  for  principles 
and  policies  of  party  which  laid  the  groundwork  of 
the  great  structure  which  the  Union  has  become  is 
the  history  of  the  development  of  leadership  in 
Congress. 

To  enable  Congress  to  meet  its  constitutional  obli- 
gations a  strong  leadership  was  essential.  This  be- 
came increasingly  evident  as  the  partisanship  which 
had  first  shown  itself  in  the  convention  of  1787  sue- 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP      31 

ceeded  the  era  of  harmony  which,  broadly  speaking, 
was  co-existent  with  the  period  in  which  the  great 
founders  of  the  republic  held  the  principal  positions 
of  trust  and  honor  under  the  government.  Thus  the 
power  of  the  speakership  developed  as  a  necessity  of 
party  government.  \X^ 

The  first  distinguished  exponent  in  the  House  of 
the  theory  of  government  through  party  was«Henry 
Clay,  the  only  man  ever  elected  Speaker  on  the  day  of 
his  first  entrance,  the  only  one  whose  whole  service — 
six  terms,  five  of  them  consecutive — was  in  the  Chair, 
and  the  only  Member  of  the  House  ever  to  rise  to 
that  high  office  other  than  by  virtue  of  conspicuous 
service  in  that  body.  Mr.  Clay  was  not  the  leader  of 
a  party  because  he  was  Speaker,  a  circumstance  which 
has  been  true  with  respect  to  some  Speakers,  but  was 
made  Speaker  because  he  was  the  recognized  exponent 
of  an  idea,  a  man  who  had  been  twice  in  the  Senate 
before  he  entered  the  lower  House.  The  speakership 
of  Henry  Clay,  from  the  Twelfth  to  the  Sixteenth 
Congress,  inclusive,  and  in  the  Eighteenth  Cqngress, 
largely  strengthened  the  precedent  which  made  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  a  dominant  figure  in  party  and 
his  office  second  only  to  the  presidency  in  power  and 
prestige,  a  fact  which  was  to  become  of  transcendent 
importance  to  the  maintenance  of  the  constitutional 
theory  of  a  balanced  government,  and  the  preserva- 
tion unimpaired  of  those  special  prerogatives,  with 
respect  to  taxation  and  the  power  of  impeachment,  de- 
liberately lodged  by  the  Constitution  in  that  body 
springing  directly  from  the  people,  and  responsible 
every  second  year  to  the  people.  A  century  of  weak 
and  inadequate  leadership  in  the  House  of  Represen- 


32          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tatives,  under  the  peculiar  American  system,  and 
under  rules  of  procedure  destructive  of  those  elements 
essential  to  the  preservation  of  privileges,  almost  cer- 
tainly would  have  resulted  in  a  pronounced  encroach- 
ment of  the  Senate  upon  the  House,  and  the  aggran- 
dizement of  the  presidency  at  the  expense  of  both.  The 
political  instincts  of  the  American  people,  in  the  era 
before  the  introduction  of  foreign  influences,  saved 
them  for  more  than  a  century  from  such  a  perversion 
of  the  fundamental  theory  of  representative  govern- 
ment under  a  party  system.  Repeated  attacks  upon 
the  power  of  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives served  only  to  strengthen  and  fortify  the  office 
which  he  held. 

These  assaults  upon  the  essential  powers  of  the 
speakership  began  as  early  as  1806,  in  the  Ninth 
Congress,  of  which  Nathaniel  Macon  was  Speaker, 
when  Representative  Willis  Alston,  Jr.,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, the  Speaker's  own  state,  proposed  that  members 
of  committees  be  chosen  by  ballot.  In  this,  the  first 
recorded  instance  of  an  attempt  to  take  from  the 
Speaker  the  great  source  of  his  power,  the  motion  was 
defeated  by  the  close  vote  of  forty-four  to  forty-two. 
The  following  year  the  proposition  was  again  ad- 
vanced, and  was  again  rejected,  yeas  twenty-four, 
nays  eighty-seven,  the  argument  against  it  being  that 
in  the  selection  of  committees  by  ballot  "there  was  no 
responsibility,  such  as  a  Speaker  felt,"  and  that  a 
House  with  many  new  Members  could  not  ballot  intel- 
ligently. 

During  the  first  session  of  the  Eleventh  Congress, 
in  1809,  a  similar  attempt  was  once  more  made,  and 
once  again  the  House  refused  to  weaken  the  essential 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP      33 

powers  of  the  speakership.  Henry  Clay  took  up  the 
responsible  duties  of  that  office,  for  which  he  was 
admirably  fitted  by  experience,  ambition  and  tempera- 
ment, with  the  unimpaired  power  of  naming  the  com- 
mittees firmly  in  his  hands.  In  1813  Mr.  Cyrus  King, 
of  Massachusetts,  presented  a  proposition  for  the 
choice  of  the  Committee  on  Elections  by  lot,  but  after 
the  constitutional  power  of  the  House  to  adopt  such 
a  rule  had  been  challenged,  the  proposal  was  defeated.* 
Thirty-six  years  were  to  pass  before  another  important 
precedent  was  to  be  established  confirming  the  great 
power  of  the  Speaker. 

Mr.  Clay  had  drawn  his  ideals  and  his  conceptions 
of  government  from  the  uncontaminated  springs  of 
inspiration  in  the  hearts  of  the  common  people.  He 
had  been  the  Speaker  of  the  Kentucky  House.  He 
knew  the  powers,  the  responsibilities  and  the  oppor- 
tunities of  that  office.  In  Washington  he  became  a 
guiding  spirit  in  those  movements  through  which  par- 
ties made  manifest  their  aims  and  aspirations. 

Except  it  be  the  sword  there  is  no  power  so  jeal- 
ously guarded  by  Congress,  and  particularly  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  as  the  purse.  The  supreme 
control  of  the  Federal  Treasury  by  the  popular  branch 
of  the  legislative  body  is  guaranteed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion. Mr.  Clay  contributed  greatly  to  the  development 
of  that  function  as  a  weapon  of  legislative  defense 
against  the  Executive,  and  the  impulses  set  in  motion 
in  his  day  continued  for  a  century  to  be  among  the 
most  powerful  factors  influencing  the  mental  proc- 
esses of  Congress.  His  interpretation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion was  conservative,  but  not  narrow.  In  one  of  the 


•"Hinds'  Precedents,  Section  4448. 


34    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

first  political  controversies  which  agitated  the  new 
republic  and  led  to  the  tightening  of  party  lines,  the 
internal  development  of  the  country  proved  a  ques- 
tion upon  which  there  were  to  be  remarkable  reactions 
in  political  opinion,  down  to  the  present  time.  Mr. 
Clay  took  a  position  upholding  the  right  of  the  fed- 
eral government,  under  the  Constitution,  to  carry  out 
great  national  improvement  projects.  On  this  issue 
those  who  opposed  the  strict  constructionists'  theory 
of  states'  rights  found  a  firm  footing,  and  a  funda- 
mental cause  of  party  conflict  was  emphasized.  Mr. 
Clay  urged  upon  the  House  the  propriety  of  retain- 
ing the  great  power  vested  in  Congress,  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  take  issue  with  so  formidable  an  authority  on 
the  Constitution  as  Madison,  and  taking  the  floor  de- 
livered an  address  which  contains  in  their  essence  all 
the  arguments,  including  the  protective  theory,  which 
were  later  to  be  employed  in  the  justification  of  the 
extension  of  the  federal  power.* 

"That  there  are  two  classes  of  powers  in  the  Con- 
stitution," said  Clay,  "I  believe  has  never  been  contro- 
verted by  an  American  politician.  We  cannot  foresee 
and  provide  specifically  for  all  contingencies.  Man 
and  his  language  are  both  imperfect.  Hence  the  exis- 
tence of  construction  and  of  constructive  powers. 
Hence  also  the  rule  that  a  grant  of  the  end  is  a  grant 
of  the  means.  If  you  amend  the  Constitution  a  thou- 
sand times,  the  same  imperfection  of  our  nature  and 
our  language  will  attend  our  new  works.  There  are 
two  dangers  to  which  we  are  exposed.  The  one  is, 
that  the  general  government  may  relapse  into  the 
debility  which  existed  in  the  old  Confederation,  and 


In  the  House,  March  13,  1818. 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP   35 

finally  dissolve  from  the  want  of  cohesion.  The  denial 
to  it  of  powers  plainly  conferred,  or  clearly  necessary 
and  proper  to  execute  the  conferred  powers,  may  pro- 
duce this  effect.  And  I  think,  with  great  deference  to 
the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  this  is  the  danger  to 
which  their  principles  directly  tend.  The  other  dan- 
ger, that  of  consolidation,  is,  by  the  assumption  of 
powers  not  granted  nor  incident  to  granted  powers, 
or  the  assumption  of  powers  which  have  been  withheld 
or  expressly  prohibited.  This  was  the  danger  of  the 
period  of  1798-9.  For  instance,  that  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  a  prohibitory  clause  of  the  Constitution,  a 
sedition  act  was  passed;  and  an  alien  law  was  also 
passed,  in  equal  violation  of  the  spirit,  if  not  of  the 
express  provisions  of  the  Constitution.  It  was  by  such 
measures  that  the  Federal  party,  if  parties  might  be 
named,  throwing  off  the  veil,  furnished  to  their  adver- 
saries the  most  effectual  ground  of  opposition.  If 
they  had  not  passed  those  acts,  I  think  it  highly  prob- 
able that  the  current  of  power  would  have  continued 
to  flow  in  the  same  channel;  and  the  change  of  par- 
ties in  1801,  so  auspicious  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
country,  as  I  believe,  would  never  have  occurred." 

Mr.  Clay  held  tenaciously  to  the  theory  that  Con- 
gress has  paramount  power  to  the  President,  and  that 
theory,  which  colored  all  the  influences  which  he  was 
to  exert  upon  Congress  and  the  country,  as  Speaker, 
and  as  Senator,  became  in  the  end  one  of  the  subcon- 
cious  convictions  of  Congress  down  to  the  present  day, 
a  conviction  which  has  been  one  of  the  strongest  forces 
at  work  in  the  various  reactions  of  Congress  and  the 
Executive  upon  each  other,  under  varying  conditions 
of  public  peril  and  confusion  of  public  mind. 


36 

In  1811  Mr.  Clay  came  to  the  speakership  as  a 
result  of  the  first  of  the  significant  "insurgent"  move- 
ments within  parties  which  have,  from  time  to  time, 
down  to  the  present  day,  exerted,  such  a  determining 
influence  upon  political  tendencies.  The  Tenth  and 
Eleventh  Congresses  had  brought  a  large  part  of  the 
country  to  a  state  of  wrath.  In  an  effort  to  avoid 
war  with  Great  Britain  the  Embargo  and  Non-Inter- 
course Act  had  been  first  adopted  and  then  abandoned. 
There  was  no  sense  of  direction  in  the  administration 
and  a  split  occurred  in  the  Jefferson  party,  which  wit- 
nessed the  rise  to  power  of  a  new  element  of  strength 
in  the  nation. 

Like  other  revolts  within  American  parties  the 
insurgency  of  1810  was  a  western  movement.  Its 
exponents  demanded  a  firm  government  at  Washing- 
ton, and  war  with  England.  The  West  was  coming 
into  power  with  all  the  aggressive  qualities,  all  the 
freshness  of  inspiration,  all  the  courage  of  convictions, 
which  have  characterized  the  whole  western  impulse 
in  the  United  States.  The  western  idealists  of  1810 
had  vision,  imagination  and  faith,  and  they  were  not 
afraid.  They  visualized  an  empire  beyond  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  at  a  time  when  the  young  republic  was  still 
huddled  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  looking  toward  the 
Old  World.  Conscious  of  their  own  destiny,  the  west- 
ern insurgents  of  1810  saw  that  there  could  be  no 
development  west  of  the  mountains  until  the  Indian 
question  had  been  settled,  and  the  Indian  question  was 
one  to  be  settled,  not  with  the  savages,  but  with  Eng- 
land. They  did  not  shrink,  even,  from  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  conquest  of  Canada.  From  the  Ohio  Valley 
they  could  glimpse  the  very  Pole  itself. 


SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP      37 

In  the  elections  of  1810  the  war  faction  swept  the 
country,  and  it  was  a  new  House  which  assembled 
when  the  Twelfth  Congress  began  its  sessions  on 
November  4,  1811.  "The  young  warhawks  and  Indian 
fighters  with  only  a  skirmish  were  able  to  seize  the 
speakership  for  Representative  Clay  on  his  first  day 
of  service."* 

Clay  then  organized  the  House  to  enable  him  to 
carry  out  the  will  of  the  new  faction  which  had  come 
into  power.  He  named  the  committees,  and  appointed 
his  principal  lieutenants  on  Foreign  Relations,  Cal- 
houn  and  Grundy,  and  Peter  B.  Porter,  of  New  York, 
afterward  Secretary  of  War,  whom  he  made  chair- 
man. On  November  twenty-ninth  the  committee  made 
a  report  giving  their  opinion  in  favor  of  war,  and 
recommended  a  warlike  policy.  "On  March  fifteenth 
Speaker  Clay  laid  before  the  administration  a  pro- 
gramf — an  embargo  of  thirty  days,  then  a  declaration 
of  war,  and  provision  for  the  acceptance  of  ten  thou- 
sand volunteers  on  short  enlistments,  and  gave  them  to 
understand  that  although  a  declaration  of  war  lay 
within  the  Constitutional  powers  of  Congress,  yet  the 
administration  was  expected  to  take  the  responsibility 
of  recommending  it.  Madison,  though  willing  to  make 
another  attempt  at  peaceful  settlement,  by  a  special 
mission,  was  forced  by  the  warhawks  to  give  it  up, 
and  accepting  Clay's  program,  on  April  first  recom- 
mended an  embargo  of  sixty  days,  which  by  the  peace 
men  was  extended  to  ninety.  .  .  .  And  on  June 
first  was  sent  in  the  war  message." 

Clay  had  lifted  the  speakership  of  the  House  to  a 

*American  Historical  Association,  1911,  Vol.  I,  p.  173. 
t/6id.,  p.  175. 


38         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

point  of  new  power  and  responsibility,  the  Speaker  to 
a  place  in  the  state  where,  backed  by  the  party  organ- 
ization behind  him,  he  could  present  to  the  President 
a  program  determining  a  national  policy  and  involv- 
ing a  declaration  of  war.  At  a  conference  between 
the  President  and  a  delegation  from  the  House,  Mr. 
Clay  brought  to  bear  upon  Mr.  Madison,  not  upon  the 
floor  of  Congress,  not  from  the  Speaker's  Chair,  but 
in  the  White  House,  the  influence  of  his  great  office 
in  an  appeal  to  arms,  against  the  pacifist  sentiment 
of  the  President  and  most  of  the  Cabinet.  The  con- 
ference of  congressional  leaders  with  the  President 
was  recognized  as  an  extra-constitutional  medium  of 
communication  between  the  executive  and  the  legis- 
lative branch  of  the  government,  not  to  enable  the 
President  to  influence  Congress,  but  to  permit  Con- 
gress informally  to  advise  the  Executive  of  a  pro- 
gram and  a  policy  determined  upon  at  the  Capitol. 


CHAPTER  III 
GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY 

IN  THE  development  of  his  functions  as  the  leader 
of  the  Whig  party,  Mr.  Speaker  Clay  was  an  active 
aggressor  in  the  first  of  the  four  significant  conflicts 
between  Congress  and  the  Executive,  in  the  cases  of 
Andrew  Jackson,  Andrew  Johnson,  Theodore  Roose- 
velt and  Woodrow  Wilson,  all  of  which  were  them- 
selves reactionary,  and  all  of  which  set  in  motion 
forces  whose  subsequent  reactions  will  influence 
American  political  history  for  many  years.  In  each 
instance  the  primitive  instincts  of  fear  and  selfishness ; 
conflicting  personal  ambitions;  thwarted  hopes,  and 
animosities  growing  into  deadly  hatreds,  were  woven 
into  the  very  warp  of  the  fabric  of  governmental  poli- 
cies, fixing  and  determining  principles  of  powerful 
political  parties,  and  giving  direction  to  strong  ten- 
dencies of  thought. 

The  emergence  into  public  life  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son from  the  battlefields  where  his  exploits  inflamed 
the  imagination  of  the  country,  brought  him  upon 
the  stage  of  politics  at  a  moment  when  the  leading 
actors  of  the  day  had  reached  the  climax  of  the  drama 
in  which  they  were  rival  stars.  Clay,  Calhoun  and 
Webster,  the  most  romantic  adventurers  in  the  his- 
tory of  American  statesmanship,  the  three  musketeers 
of  politics,  destroyed  themselves  in  their  efforts  to 

39 


40         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

destroy  Jackson,  who  wrecked  the  Whig  party  as  Jef- 
ferson had  wrecked  the  Federalists.  Banded  together 
in  a  common  effort  to  overthrow  the  man  who,  through 
himself  and  his  friends,  barred  their  way  to  the  presi- 
dency, and  disloyal  to  one  another  by  force  of  the 
very  circumstances  which  made  their  allegiance  nec- 
essary to  the  accomplishment  of  their  objective,  they 
left  behind  them  as  the  heritage  of  ruined  hopes, 
potential  political  energies  which  have  not  even  yet 
become  exhausted.  Their  final  triumph  came,  when 
they  were  in  their  graves,  not  because  they  had  not 
failed,  for  they  had,  but  because,  in  the  end,  democ- 
racy in  America  could  not  survive  negro  slavery. 

It  was  an  era  of  luxuriant  growth  of  democratic 
principles,  one  of  the  most  significant  of  the  forma- 
tive periods  in  American  history,  during  which  were 
set  in  motion  those  forces  whose  reactions  were  to 
have  a  determining  influence  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  the  development  of  federal  authority,  the 
economic  expansion  of  the  nation,  and  the  relation- 
ships between  government  and  business.  The  struggle 
between  President  Jackson  and  the  United  States 
Bank  and  the  triumvirate  of  political  giants  who  sup- 
ported it  in  Congress,  and  the  impeachment  of  Presi- 
dent Johnson,  which  was  a  reaction  from  the  Jackson 
contest,  are  psychologically  the  supreme  facts  in 
American  political  history. 

The  Jackson  contest  was  a  trial  of  strength  be- 
tween the  government  and  business.  From  it  were 
to  come  the  anti-trust  laws,  government  regulation  of 
the  railroads  and  their  earnings,  and  numerous  stat- 
utes of  this  character. 

Mr.  Clay's  leadership  was  so  largely  personal  that 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  41 

when  he  left  the  House  of  Representatives  he  trans- 
ferred it  to  the  Senate.  Both  Houses  were  friendly 
to  the  Bank,  although  in  the  House  Andrew  Steven- 
son, of  Virginia,  the  Speaker,  was  against  it.  The 
struggle  approached  a  crisis  on  the  eve  of  the  presi- 
dential  election,  in  which  Clay  was  to  be  defeated  by 
Jackson.  The  President's  lieutenants  decided  to  force 
the  Bank  on  the  defensive  in  the  Senate,  and  it  was 
determined  to  initiate  in  the  House  an  investigation 
by  a  committee  of  that  body,  as  provided  for  in  the 
Bank  charter.  It  was  a  "Jackson"  House,  by  a  small 
majority,  but  the  Bank's  influence  was  potent. 

On  February  23,  1832,  Mr.  Augustin  S.  Clayton, 
of  Georgia,  made  a  motion  that  a  select  committee 
be  appointed  to  conduct  the  inquiry.*  The  supporters 
of  the  Bank  made  a  determined  resistance,  and  on 
March  seventh  Mr.  Erastus  Root,  of  New  York,  moved 
to  amend  the  resolution  so  that  the  committee  should 
be  chosen  by  ballot,  so  as  to  take  the  appointment  of 
its  members  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Speaker,  "who, 
following  the  parliamentary  rule,"  as  Mr.  Benton 
says,  "would  select  a  majority  of  Members  favorable 
to  inquiry,  and  in  the  vote  by  ballot,  the  Bank,  hav- 
ing a  majority  in  the  House,  could  reverse  the  parlia- 
mentary rule,  and  give  to  the  institution  a  committee 
to  shield  instead  of  to  probe  it.f  Unbecoming,  and 
even  suspicious  to  the  institution  itself  as  this  propo- 
sition was,  it  came  within  a  tie  vote  of  passing,  and 
was  only  lost  by  the  casting  vote  of  the  Speaker." 

There  is  a  shade  of  error  in  this  last  statement  by 
Mr.  Benton,  and  an  erroneous  inference  might  be 

*Journal,  Twenty-Second  Congress,  first  session,  p.  402. 
^Thirty  Yews'  View,  Vol.  I,  p.  239. 


42          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

drawn  from  it.  Mr.  Root's  amendment  was  lost,  on 
March  eighth,  yeas  eighty-eight,  nays  ninety-two. 
But  on  the  following  day  the  House  reconsidered  this 
vote,  ninety-eight  to  ninety-three — the  lobby  of  the 
Bank  swarming  through  the  Capitol  corridors  must 
have  been  unusually  active — and  on  March  thirteenth 
the  question  was  again  taken  on  the  proposition  to  ap- 
point the  committee  by  ballot,  and  this  time  the  vote 
was  a  tie,  yeas  one  hundred,  nays  one  hundred.  And 
so  the  amendment  was  lost.  And  "thereupon  the 
Speaker  voted  with  the  nays,"*  although,  explains  Mr. 
Hinds,  in  a  foot-note,  "this  was  unnecessary." 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  this  was  not  a  case  in 
which  a  Speaker  of  the  House  saved  a  situation  of 
vital  concern  to  the  administration  of  which  he  was 
a  part,  the  President,  and  the  party,  through  his 
single  vote  cast  as  an  individual  Member  of  the  House, 
but  one  in  which  that  situation  was  saved  through  the 
mighty  power  of  the  speakership,  vested  with  the 
right  to  recognize  and  the  appointment  of  all  com- 
mittees, controlling  the  organization  of  the  House,  and 
supported  by  that  organization.  It  was  this  tremen- 
dous force  and  influence  in  the  House  which  went  to 
grips  with  the  United  States  Bank,  an  institution 
which  had  all  but  dominated  the  government,  and 
which  between  March  ninth,  when  the  House  had 
voted  with  the  Bank,  and  March  thirteenth,  brought 
back  to  the  support  of  the  President,  through  the 
Speaker,  a  vote  sufficient  to  sustain  the  administra- 
tion and  to  confirm  the  power  of  the  Speaker  to  ap- 
point committees. 

On  the  day  following  the  final  determination  of 


"Hinds'  Precedents,  Section  4474;  Vol.  IV,  p.  899. 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  43 

this  memorable  contest,  which  added  so  much  dis- 
tinction to  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Clay- 
ton Resolution  was  adopted,  the  Speaker  named  the 
committee,  Mr.  Clayton  was  appointed  as  its  chair- 
man, an  investigation  was  made,  and  on  May  first  a 
majority  report,  unfriendly  to  the  Bank,  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  House.  Not  only  was  the  Jackson  ad- 
ministration sustained,  but  the  President  had  demon- 
strated the  control  of  his  party  in  the  House,  while 
another  precedent  had  been  added  to  the  long  list  of 
those  instances  in  which  the  House  of  Representatives 
declined  to  infringe  upon  the  essential  powers  of  the 
speakership  in  order  to  achieve  a  temporary  advan- 
tage. The  most  formidable  financial  power  in 
America,  to  whose  influences  Senators  and  Members 
of  the  House  were  peculiarly  susceptible,  had  failed 
to  seduce  the  House  into  a  destruction  of  its  own 
vitality. 

Jackson's  annihilation  of  the  United  States  Bank 
and  the  public  men  who  joined  their  fortunes  with 
it  exerted  a  significant  psychological  influence  upon 
subsequent  political  tendencies.  The  extraordinary 
use  of  the  executive  authority  which  he  was  com- 
pelled to  employ  to  carry  out  his  determination  with 
respect  to  the  Bank  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of 
singularly  strong,  resourceful  and  ambitious  men, 
gave  to  his  opponents  argumentative  weapons  the 
employment  of  which  did  much  to  implant  in  the 
congressional  mind  a  deep  fear  of  executive  encroach- 
ment, while  arousing  in  the  country  a  counter-emo- 
tion of  admiration  for  presidential  power.  The  jealousy 
with  which  Congress  had  regarded  its  constitutional 
prerogative  with  respect  to  the  public  money  and  the 


44         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

army  was  intensified.  The  power  of  Congress  over 
the  Treasury  had  been  regarded  as  absolute  until  Jack- 
son successfully  challenged  it. 

On  September  23,  1833,  President  Jackson  removed 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  from  office.  With  re- 
spect to  the  administration's  bank  policy  Mr.  Duane's 
mind  went  along  with  his  no  more  willingly  than  was 
Mr.  Stanton's  to  go  along  with  Andrew  Johnson's,  or 
Mr.  Lansing's  with  Woodrow  Wilson's.  The  President 
appointed  Roger  B.  Taney  to  the  vacated  post,  and 
the  latter  promptly  removed  the  deposits  of  the  pub- 
lic money  in  the  United  States  Bank,  and  thereby  pre- 
cipitated a  situation  whose  consequences  have  exerted 
important  influences  upon  American  politics  since 
that  time. 

Mr.  Clay's  exaggerated  protrayal  of  this  exercise 
of  the  powers  of  the  presidency  implanted  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  a  fear  and  a  suspicion  of  those 
high  in  office,  which,  while  it  did  not  serve  to  impair 
the  unprecedented  confidence  reposed  in  Andrew 
Jackson  by  the  masses,  has  had  its  reflexes  in  all  sub- 
sequent political  controversy  growing  out  of  conflict 
between  the  legislative  and  the  executive  branches 
of  the  federal  government.  This  was  a  period  of  in- 
tense political  reactions,  marked  by  striking  phenom- 
ena in  the  disintegration  of  opinion,  radical  changes 
in  thought,  the  breaking  down  of  convictions  which 
had  long  endured.  Calhoun  and  Webster  reversed 
themselves  on  the  tariff,  the  South  became  wedded  to 
the  principles  of  free  trade,  and  free-trade  New  Eng- 
land embraced  protection. 

The  assaults  upon  Jackson,  led  by  the  most  bril- 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  45 

liant  triumvirate  which  perhaps  has  ever  appeared 
upon  the  political  stage  of  this  country,  tended  to 
intensify  partisanship  and  prove  the  theory  of 
majority  rule.  The  Democratic  party  became  a  wor- 
shiper of  Jackson,  whose  domination  was  absolute, 
and  a  Democratic  Congress  learned  to  obey  the  will 
of  a  masterful  Executive,  and  in  this  obedience  pow- 
erfully influenced  Democratic  political  character.  The 
triumph  of  Jackson  crystallized  into  rigid  principles 
of  party  creed  the  theories  which  had  been  born  in 
the  heat  and  bitterness  of  political  struggle.  In  the 
House  of  Representatives  the  speakership  was 
strengthened  kt  the  expense  of  the  individual  Mem- 
ber, who  subordinated  himself  to  the  general  party 
interest. 

Clay  denied  that  the  President  had  any  power 
over  the  Treasury  under  the  Constitution.  He  de- 
nounced the  removal  of  the  deposits  and  declared  that 
the  country  was  in  the  midst  of  a  revolution,  "rapidly 
tending  towards  a  total  change  of  the  pure  republi- 
can character  of  the  government,  and  to  the  con- 
centration of  all  power  in  the  hands  of  one  man." 
In  a  speech*  in  which  were  raised  constitutional 
questions  which  were  to  influence  profoundly  Ameri- 
can political  judgment,  to  accelerate  the  processes 
which  tended  to  the  creation  of  sharply-drawn  dis- 
tinctions between  parties,  whose  reactions  at  a  later 
period  were  to  make  themselves  felt  in  the  passion 
of  war  and  reconstruction,  Mr.  Clay  analyzed  and 
propounded  a  doctrine  which  had  had  its  inception  in 
the  beginnings  of  the  government,  but  which  he  made 
into  a  party  creed,  covering  issues  far  more  compre- 

*In  the  Senate,  December  26,  1833. 


46         THE  LEADERSHIP  OP  CONGRESS 

hensive  and  vital  than  the  executive  act  in  removing 
a  member  of  the  Cabinet. 

"The  Treasury  department,"  said  Mr.  Clay,  "is 
placed  by  law  on  a  different  footing  from  all  the 
other  departments,  which  are,  in  the  acts  creating 
them,  denominated  executive,  and  placed  under  the 
direction  of  the  President.  The  Treasury  department, 
on  the  contrary,  is  organized  on  totally  different  prin- 
ciples. Except  the  appointment  of  the  officers,  with 
the  co-operation  of  the  Senate,  and  the  power  which 
is  exercised  of  removing  them,  the  President  has 
neither  by  the  Constitution  nor  the  law  creating  the 
department,  anything  to  do  with  it.  The  Secretary's 
reports  and  responsibility  are  directly  to  Congress." 

In  the  same  speech  Mr.  Clay  took  the  position  that 
no  powers  could  be  exercised  under  the  structure  of 
the  American  government  "but  such  as  are  expressly 
delegated,  and  those  which  are  necessary  to  carry 
them  into  effect.  These  several  powers  with  us,"  he 
said,  "whatever  they  may  be  elsewhere,  are  just  what 
the  Constitution  has  made  them,  and  nothing  more." 

In  a  later  speech,  at  another  period,*  he  said: 
"The  powers  of  the  British  Parliament  are  unlimited, 
and  are  often  described  to  be  omnipotent.  The 
powers  of  the  American  Congress,  on  the  contrary, 
are  few,  cautiously  limited,  scrupulously  excluding  all 
that  are  not  granted."  In  the  following  year  Mr. 
Clay  analyzed  the  situation  as  he  then  saw  it,  as  be- 
tween the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of  the 
government,  declaring  that  the  source  of  legislative 
power  was  no  longer  to  be  found  in  the  Capitol,  but 
in  the  "palace  of  the  President." 

*In  the  Senate,  February  7,  1839. 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  47 

"There  were  other  points  of  difference  between  the 
Federalists  and  the  Democratic,  or  rather,  Republi- 
can party  of  1798,"  said  Mr.  Clay  on  this  occasion,* 
"but  the  great,  leading,  prominent  discrimination  be- 
tween them  related  to  the  constitution  of  the  execu- 
tive department  of  the  government.  The  Federalists 
believed  that  in  its  structure  it  was  too  weak,  and 
was  in  danger  of  being  crushed  by  the  preponderat- 
ing weight  of  the  legislative  branch.  Hence  they  ral- 
lied around  the  Executive,  and  sought  to  give  to  it 
strength  and  energy.  A  strong  government,  an  ener- 
getic Executive  was,  among  them,  the  common  lan- 
guage and  the  great  object  of  that  day.  The  Repub- 
licans on  the  contrary  believed  that  the  real  danger 
lay  on  the  side  of  the  Executive;  that  having  a  con- 
tinuous and  uninterrupted  existence,  it  was  always 
on  the  alert,  ready  to  defend  the  power  it  had,  and 
prompt  in  acquiring  more;  and  that  the  experience 
of  history  demonstrated  that  it  was  the  encroaching 
and  usurping  department.  They  therefore  rallied 
around  the  people  in  the  legislature. 

"What  are  the  positions  of  the  two  great  parties 
of  the  present  day?  Modern  democracy  has  reduced 
the  federal  theory  of  a  strong  and  energetic  Execu- 
tive to  practical  operation.  It  has  turned  from  the 
people,  the  natural  ally  of  genuine  democracy,  to  the 
Executive,  and,  instead  of  vigilance,  jealousy  and  dis- 
trust, has  given  to  that  department  all  its  confidence, 
and  made  to  it  a  virtual  surrender  of  all  the  powers 
of  government.  The  recognized  maxim  of  royal  in- 
fallibility is  transplanted  from  the  British  monarchy 
into  modern  American  democracy,  and  the  President 


*Speech  at  Taylorsville,  Virginia,  July  10,  1840. 


48         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

can  do  no  wrong.  This  new  school  adopts,  modifies, 
changes,  renounces,  renews  opinions  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  Executive.  Is  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
a  useful  and  valuable  institution?  Yes,  unanimously, 
pronounces  the  Democratic  legislature  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  President  vetoes  it  as  a  pernicious  and 
dangerous  establishment.  The  Democratic  majority 
in  the  same  legislature  pronounce  it  to  be  pernicious 
and  dangerous.  The  Democratic  majority  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  de- 
clare the  deposits  of  the  public  money  in  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  to  be  safe.  The  President  says 
they  are  unsafe,  and  removes  them.  The  Democracy 
say  they  are  unsafe,  and  approve  the  removal.  The 
President  says  that  a  scheme  of  a  Sub-Treasury  is 
revolutionary  and  disorganizing.  The  Democracy  say 
it  is  revolutionary  and  disorganizing.  The  President 
says  it  is  wise  and  salutary.  The  Democracy  say  it  is 
wise  and  salutary." 

This  analysis  of  the  psychology  of  the  Democratic 
party  of  Jackson's  period  is  that  of  a  prejudiced  con- 
temporary, but  the  characteristics  thus  limned  by  a 
master  politician  of  singularly  subtle  qualities  of 
mind  are  easily  recognized,  for  they  are  those  of  the 
Democratic  party  of  Mr.  Wilson. 

"The  Whigs  of  1840,"  said  Mr.  Clay,  "stand  where 
the  Republicans  of  1798  stood,  and  where  the  Whigs 
of  the  Revolution  were,  battling  for  liberty,  for  the 
people,  for  free  institutions,  against  power,  against 
corruption,  against  executive  encroachments,  against 
monarchy." 

It  was  in  this  speech  that  Clay  declared  that  the 
first  object  of  the  new  administration  should  be  to 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  49 

circumscribe  the  executive  power,  and  he  recom- 
mended that  there  should  be,  either  by  amendment 
of  the  Constitution,  or  by  "remedial  legislation" :  first, 
a  provision  to  render  a  person  ineligible  to  the  office 
of  President  of  the  United  States  after  a  service  of 
one  term;  second,  that  the  veto  power  should  be  more 
precisely  defined,  and  subjected  to  further  limitations 
and  qualifications;  third,  that  the  power  of  dismis- 
sion from  office  should  be  restricted,  and  the  exer- 
cise of  it  rendered  responsible;  fourth,  that  the  con- 
trol over  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  should 
be  confided  and  confined  exclusively  to  Congress; 
fifth,  that  the  appointment  of  Members  of  Congress 
to  any  office,  or  any  but  a  few  specific  offices,  during 
their  continuance  in  office,  and  for  one  year  there- 
after, be  prohibited. 

Long  after  the  struggle  between  Andrew  Jackson 
and  the  "money  power"  of  1832  had  passed  into  his- 
tory, when  new  generations  with  problems  of  their 
own,  slavery  and  civil  war,  and  the  economic  devel- 
opment of  a  continent,  had  been  born  and  had  grown 
to  maturity,  and  had  then  passed  on,  the  instinctive 
fear  of  executive  usurpation  of  power  which  had  been 
aroused  in  this  stupendous  contest  remained  in  the 
subconsciousness  of  Congress,  there  to  influence  the 
thoughts  and  actions  of  that  institution,  which,  during 
the  passing  of  a  century,  came  to  have  in  the  composite 
of  its  records  of  achievement,  its  traditions,  its  unwrit- 
ten laws,  a  group-mind  as  susceptible  to  intangible 
psychic  influence  as  the  mind  of  an  individual. 

The  House  of  Representatives,  with  its  constantly 
shifting  membership,  witnessing  the  rise  and  decline 
of  great  leaders,  absorbing  each  year  new  blood,  and 


50         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

constitutionally  designed  to  prevent  perpetuity  and 
continuity,  developed,  nevertheless,  all  the  attributes 
of  permanent  individual  entity.  The  precepts  of  its 
youth,  the  vivid  impressions  of  its  brilliant  political 
childhood,  recurred  unconsciously  to  mind  in  the  days 
of  its  greater  maturity,  and  became  powerful  fac- 
tors in  influencing  constructive  legislative  conduct. 
It  developed  a  code  of  ethics,  a  spirituality,  a  politi- 
cal morality.  It  functioned  successfully  when  it  was 
faithful  to  its  principles  of  political  honor,  and  failed 
when  it  sacrificed  its  inherent  integrity  to  expediency. 
Such  violations  of  its  own  ethics  left  indelible  scars 
on  the  parties  which  perpetrated  them.  The  periods 
which  marked  the  greatest  distinction  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  the  service  of  democratic  govern- 
ment were  those  in  which  the  codes  of  partisanship 
were  most  strictly  adhered  to,  for  partisanship  meant 
in  its  essence  the  sacrifice  of  personal  selfishness  to 
the  general  welfare ;  and  impotency,  subserviency  and 
instability  characterized  those  periods  in  which  poli- 
tical morality  was  at  its  lowest  ebb.  The  House  was 
to  reach  heights  of  glory  and  splendor,  and  to  sink 
into  political  degeneracy,  as  it  was  guided  by  or  de- 
viated from  the  principles  upon  which  its  greatness 
had  been  founded.  There  is  no  instance,  great  or 
small,  in  the  record  of  its  achievements,  of  a  credit- 
able act  of  the  House  which  did  not  spring  from  the 
force  of  political  morality;  there  is  no  failure  in  the 
record  which  can  not  be  explained  upon  the  hypothe- 
sis of  its  inoperation.  The  moral  and  spiritual  quali- 
ties of  the  House  of  Representatives — of  Congress — 
are  as  essentially  human  as  those  of  an  individual; 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PARTY  51 

and  it  is  governed  by  the  same  laws  to  which  the 
individual  responds. 

Since  by  the  very  genius  of  its  structure,  in  con- 
formity with  the  inspired  work  of  those  who  wrote 
the  Constitution,  the  House  could  not  function  with 
political  integrity  except  through  the  power  of  con- 
certed action,  partisanship  became  moral,  and  there 
was  developed  a  theory  of  government  founded  on 
conviction,  party  and  majority  rule. 

Thus  the  two-party  system  grew  out  of  the  fun- 
damental structure  of  the  Constitution,  the  plan  of 
which  provides  for  a  government  which  can  be  ad- 
ministered only  under  a  two-party  form.  Experience 
demonstrated  to  the  wisdom  of  Congress  that  no  other 
plan  of  government  is  possible  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, for  which  reason  there  has  never  been  a  major 
third  party  in  the  United  States,  and  can  never  be. 
There  may  be  new  parties  to  replace  those  which  dis- 
integrate through  unfaithfulness  to  ideals,  or  in  con- 
sequence of  moral  weakness;  but  invariably  the  new 
party  has  either  supplanted  the  old,  or  fallen  into 
decay  after  fruitless  effort  to  maintain  itself. 

Under  the  American  scheme  there  have  always 
been  two  parties,  the  party  supporting  the  administra- 
tive officers  of  the  government,  and  the  party  which  the 
genius  of  the  Constitution  tends  to  create  in  opposition 
to  that  administration.  In  accordance  with  this 
formula  the  two-party  system  was  perfected. 

The  Constitution  makes  no  provision  for  a  parlia- 
mentary minister.  Of  that  European  office  there  is 
no  equivalent  under  the  American  system,  the  basic 
principle  of  which  is  a  strict  separation  of  the  execu- 


52 

tive  and  legislative  functions;  and  the  inflexible  deter- 
mination of  the  Congress  to  resist  any  tendency  within 
the  system  toward  the  development  of  any  authority 
exercising,  or  attempting  to  exercise,  the  functions 
of  both,  has  been  one  of  the  marked  character- 
istics of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government. 
Without  the  subversion  of  the  Constitution,  coalition 
government  in  the  United  States  would  mean  politi- 
cal chaos,  legislation  through  the  medium  of  minori- 
ties actuated  by  selfishness  and  acting  without  respon- 
sibility, inefficiency  in  the  business  of  government, 
and  in  the  end  corruption. 

Perceiving  a  possible  danger  to  the  security  and 
stability  of  legislative  government,  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, the  body  peculiarly  the  bulwark  of  popu- 
lar liberty,  put  itself  in  a  posture  of  defense  to  meet 
its  two  deadliest  enemies,  fortifying  itself  on  the  one 
hand  against  the  possible  encroachment  of  the  Execu- 
tive, from  an  instinctive  fear  of  despotism,  and  on  the 
other  against  forces  within  its  own  membership  likely 
under  exceptional  circumstances  to  seek  the  destruction 
of  the  party  system  for  the  sake  of  immediate  selfish 
interest,  as  a  thoughtless  boy  might  fell  a  splendid  tree 
to  obtain  a  kite  caught  in  its  branches. 

Thus  the  maintenance  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
legislative  branch  of  the  government  became  uncon- 
sciously, and  under  varying  circumstances,  the  inr 
stinctive  motive  of  the  House.  Majority  rule  through 
the  power  of  the  speakership,  and  the  preservation  of 
party,  were  the  means  to  an  end,  and  the  acts  essen- 
tial to  the  defense  and  preservation  of  them  came  to 
be  regarded  as  measures  of  self-defense. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT 

THE  House  which  met  on  the  eve  of  the  Civil  War 
was  the  first  rallying  point  of  the  northern  people, 
who  saw  the  noble  structure  of  the  Union  about  to 
crumble.  In  that  Congress,  the  Thirty-Fourth,  Schuy- 
ler  Coif  ax,  who  was  to  become  a  war  Speaker,  made  his 
first  appearance  in  the  House,  and  took  part  in  the 
struggle  there  over  the  slavery  issue,  which  had  then, 
as  it  had  before,  a  direct  bearing  upon  the  speakership 
and  the  organization  of  the  House. 

Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts,  was  finally 
elected  Speaker,  February  2,  1856,  after  a  contest  of 
two  months,  during  which  period  the  House  sat  with- 
out a  Speaker  and  without  rules,  presided  over  by  the 
clerk  of  the  previous  House.  Mr.  Banks  was  chosen 
under  a  special  plurality  rule,  on  the  one  hundred 
thirty-third  ballot.  The  Republican  party,  in  a  con- 
test for  the  second  office  under  the  government,  had 
won  its  first  triumph  on  a  national  field.  Public  opin- 
ion, reflected  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  had  re- 
buked the  action  of  those  who  had  forced  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  Mr.  Buchanan's 
nomination  for  the  presidency  was  brought  about  as  a 
matter  of  political  expediency. 

The  struggle  which  ensued  during  the  extra  session 
of  this  Congress  over  the  army  bill,  to  which  the  House 

53 


54         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

had  added  a  proviso  that  the  army  "should  not  be  used 
to  enforce  the  Border-Ruffian  Code,"  was  cited  by  Mr. 
Colfax  as  marking  "the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
the  country  that  the  representatives  of  the  people 
dared  to  stand  out  against  a  President  and  Senate," 
although  the  House  was  beaten  in  the  end.  The  posi- 
tion thus  taken  by  the  House  was  a  hard  blow  at  the 
administration. 

President  Buchanan  transmitted  to  the  following 
Congress  a  message  urging  the  admission  of  Kansas 
under  the  pro-slavery  Lecompton  Constitution,  and  a 
parliamentary  struggle  between  the  executive  and  the 
legislative  branch  of  the  government  occurred  when 
Mr.  Speaker  Orr,  exercising  that  power  which  had 
come  down  to  him  from  the  fountain-head  of  Ameri- 
can parliamentary  freedom,  appointed  a  majority 
favorable  to  it  as  members  of  a  special  committee  of 
fifteen,  which  was  authorized  to  make  an  investigation. 
The  committee  refused  to  investigate.  But  although 
the  Lecompton  Bill  passed  the  Senate,  sustained  as  it 
was  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  had  just  been 
rendered  by  the  Supreme  Court,  the  administration 
could  not  force  its  passage  by  the  House,  and  was 
obliged  to  accept  amendments  which  finally  resulted  in 
its  rejection  by  the  people  of  Kansas.  It  was  a  strik- 
ing illustration  of  the  fact  that  despite  its  vast  power 
the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  under 
the  old  system,  was  subject  to  the  influence  of  public 
opinion. 

Mr.  Colfax  came  to  the  speakership  during  the  late 
Civil  War  period,  and  for  three  successive  Congresses 
presided  over  Houses  of  exceptional  ability,  and 
charged  with  responsibilities  such  as  had  not  devolved 


55 

upon  any  House  up  to  that  time.  The  speakership  was 
dedicated  to  the  support  of  President  Lincoln,  and  the 
constructive  policies  of  his  second  administration. 
"The  political  advantages  and  power  of  the  position 
were  never  used  with  greater  effect  or  with  more  sa- 
gacity, nor  were  they  ever  directed  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  nobler  ends.*  After  Lincoln's  death  no  man 
spoke  with  more  authority  than  Speaker  Coif  ax;  no 
man  did  more,  in  and  out  of  the  House,  to  initiate, 
develop,  guide,  and  carry  to  success  the  policy  that 
funded  in  the  organic  law  the  costly  fruits  of  the 
Civil  War." 

Mr.  Colfax  organized  the  committees  of  the  House 
"to  his  own  satisfaction,!  untrammelled  by  pledges 
to  persons,  but,  of  course,  with  the  necessary  reference 
to  considerations  of  locality  and  of  the  prior  positions 
held  by  re-elected  members."  He  used  to  the  greatest 
possible  extent  under  the  rules  the  great  powers  of  his 
office. 

It  was  through  the  agency  of  party  discipline  that 
President  Lincoln's  proposed  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution, abolishing  slavery  throughout  the  United 
States,  which  had  passed  the  Senate,  but  had  failed  in 
the  House  at  the  previous  session,  was  finally  put 
through  that  body.  The  Speaker  and  the  organiza- 
tion, headed  by  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  kept 
the  House  functioning  behind  the  President.  Colfax 
was  described  by  a  contemporary  as  "the  embodiment 
of  the  war  policy  of  the  government."  There  was  the 
spirit  of  revolt,  of  insurgency  against  the  President 

*Hfe  of  Schuyler  Colfax,  by  0.  J.  Hollister,  p.  216. 
t/6id,  p.  218, 


56         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

and  against  the  cause  of  the  war,  in  that  Congress,  and 
but  for  the  great  power  which  the  rules  vested  in  the 
Speaker,  measures  of  vital  importance  to  the  support 
of  the  war  might  have  been  jeopardized.  As  late  as 
the  eighth  of  April,  1864,  the  rebellion  was  defended  on 
the  floor  in  a  speech  by  a  Member  from  Ohio,  Mr.  Alex- 
ander Long,  and  the  next  day  the  Speaker  took  the 
floor  and  offered  a  resolution  for  his  expulsion.  This 
was  later  amended,  and  became  a  resolution  of  severe 
censure,  which  was  adopted.  The  House  was  frequently 
the  scene  of  sessions  marked  by  violence  and  disorder. 
A  strong  hand  was  essential  to  its  control,  if  the 
machinery  of  the  government,  which  was  engaged  in  a 
life  and  death  struggle,  was  to  be  kept  in  motion. 

"The  Speaker  is  not  only  the  autocrat  of  this  popu- 
lar body,  he  is  himself  the  practical  embodiment  of  the 
majority,"*  says  a  biographer  of  Mr.  Speaker  Coif  ax, 
describing  the  powers  of  the  office  which  he  held. 
"His  functions  are  not  showy;  his  influence  is  largely 
subtle,  indirect,  judicial ;  his  is  no  place  for  the  striking 
qualities  of  the  leader  of  debate  on  the  floor;  but  he 
has  more  practical  power,  and  can  more  directly  and 
profoundly  influence  affairs,  particularly  in  stormy 
times,  than  any  other  officer  of  the  government.  He 
distributes  absolutely  the  legislative  power  of  the 
House,  which  is  lodged  in  committees.  He  controls  the 
floor,  assigning  to  it  what  measures  he  pleases,  pro- 
moting this,  obstructing  that,  at  his  pleasure.  He 
appoints  conference  committees  on  the  part  of  the 
House,  and  as  to  most  important  legislation,  confer- 
ence committees  ultimately  decide  what  shall  or  shall 
not  be  enacted.  He  directly  affects  the  career  of  the 


*Life  of  Schuyler  Coif  ax,  by  0.  J.  Hollister,  p.  215. 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  57 

Representatives,  as  he  brings  them  forward  or  keeps 
them  in  the  background.  Aside  from  certain  rules 
which  he  construes  for  himself,  there  is  no  restriction 
on  him  save  his  conscience  and  his  accountability  to 
public  opinion.  With  capacity  and  character  equal  to 
the  demands  and  opportunities  of  the  position,  the 
Speaker's  private  or  personal  influence  is  almost  un- 
bounded. To  meet  the  just  expectations  of  public  opin- 
ion, he  must  be  a  very  capable  and  high-minded  man. 
He  must  organize  the  committees  so  as  to  give  full  and 
easy  expression  and  effect  to  the  policy  of  the  country 
through  the  House,  and  his  personal  influence  must 
be  directed  to  securing  unity  of  thought  and  purpose. 
In  doing  this,  he  will  have  made  the  best  and  only 
legitimate  use  of  his  political  power." 

During  this  administration  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  was  in  the  close  confidence  of  the  President,  and 
"Mr.  Lincoln  rarely  took  any  step  affecting  the  inter- 
ests of  the  nation  without  making  known  his  intentions 
to  and  consulting  with  Mr.  Coif  ax,  in  whose  judgment 
he  placed  the  utmost  confidence,"  wrote  one  of  the 
biographers  of  Lincoln.  There  was,  under  his  leader- 
ship, close  cooperation  between  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives and  the  White  House.  He  directed  the 
House  in  conformity  with  a  policy  sustained  by  that 
public  opinion  to  which,  in  the  last  analysis,  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  must  conform,  not  as  a  majority 
leader  and  the  national  spokesman  of  a  political  party, 
but  as  a  Representative  in  Congress,  responsible  in 
that  capacity  to  the  constituency  of  a  single  congres- 
sional district,  and  compelled  to  submit  his  record  to 
its  judgment  every  second  year.  The  American 
Speaker,  therefore,  is  in  no  sense  a  Premier,  holding 


58         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

his  place  at  the  head  of  a  party  by  virtue  of  control 
of  a  majority  in  the  House,  but  a  party  leader  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  voters  of  his  own  congressional  district. 
It  is  this  fact  which  gave  to  the  American  speakership 
a  special  character  in  harmony  with  the  peculiar  Amer- 
ican theory  of  representative  government. 

Another  tremendous  and  momentous  conflict  be- 
tween the  executive  and  the  legislative  branch  of  the 
government  was  impending  as  Lincoln  died.  It  was 
destined  to  be  a  contest  which  was  to  be  influenced 
largely  by  the  traditions  of  the  past,  from  which  the 
House  was  to  draw  inspiration,  and  which  was  itself 
to  set  in  motion  forces  which  in  later  days  were  to 
influence  the  relationships  between  the  President  and 
Congress. 

Andrew  Johnson  was  starting  upon  that  course  of 
policy  toward  the  South  which  eventually  was  to  lead 
to  his  indictment  by  the  House  and  his  arraignment 
at  the  bar  of  the  Senate.  The  country  turned  instinc- 
tively to  the  House  for  leadership  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  gone. 

Mr.  Coif  ax,  in  an  address  in  Washington  on  Novem-. 
ber  18,  1865,  just  prior  to  the  assembling  of  the 
Thirty-Ninth  Congress,  of  which  it  was  certain  he 
would  be  elected  Speaker  of  the  House,  boldly  enunci- 
ated the  policy  of  the  federal  government  toward  the 
Southern  States,  without  regard  to  what  the  program 
of  the  President  might  be.  He  took  a  stand  against 
the  admission  to  Congress  of  former  Confederates, 
declaring  that  reconstruction  must  precede  their  res- 
toration to  their  original  standing  in  the  Union,  and 
challenging  his  associates  to  reelect  him  on  this  plat- 
form, or  to  repudiate  him.  In  this  declaration  of  prin- 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  59 

ciple  Mr.  Colfax  voiced  well-nigh  the  unanimous  opin- 
ion of  the  North.  The  speech  was  declared  to  be  a 
most  significant  utterance.  It  was  made  deliberately, 
to  inform  the  people  of  the  policy  contemplated  by 
Congress. 

It  was  not  merely  a  Member  of  the  House,  but  the 
man  who  had  been  Speaker  in  the  previous  Congress, 
and  was  certain  to  be  again,  who  thus  took  the  initia- 
tive in  outlining  a  national  policy.  Mr.  Colfax  frankly  \ 
proclaimed  the  supremacy  of  Congress  to  the  Execu-  I 
tive  as  a  fact,  as  Clay  had  proclaimed  it  in  Jackson's 
time  as  a  principle.  Few  incidents  of  greater  psycho- 
logical significance  are  recorded  in  the  annals  of 
American  political  history.  The  freedom  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  from  all  executive  restraint  in  the 
initiation  of  legislation  through  which  policies  of  the 
government  were  to  be  determined  was  enunciated  as 
a  doctrine  of  political  faith.  The  House  acquired  a  new 
confidence  in  itself,  a  warming  pride,  and  a  deeper 
consciousness  of  majesty  and  dignity  as  the  citadel  of 
constitutional  liberty.  It  was  in  some  respects  the 
most  significant  moment  in  the  long  history  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  progress  toward  the  perfection  of  the  popular 
assembly  as  the  seat  of  public  rights  since  John  Pym 
had  assumed  the  leadership  of  the  Long  Parliament  in 
1640. 

The  leadership  in  the  House,  of  which  Colfax  was 
the  head,  saw  as  Pym  had  seen  "that  as  an  element  ofi 
constitutional  life  parliament  was  of  higher  value  thai* 
the  crown."  In  the  contest  which  was  to  come  with 
President  Johnson  the  House  wrote  this  conception  of 
its  peculiar  value  upon  its  inner  consciousness,  and  by 
it  was  to  be  guided  consciously  and  subconsciously  in 


60         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  subsequent  relations  with  the  presidency.  It  was 
a  contest  in  which  the  House  took  the  initiative  and 
forced  the  issue. 

Without  the  experience  which  had  come  from  the 
struggle  between  Andrew  Jackson,  and  the  United 
States  Bank  and  its  supporters  in  Congress,  without 
the  fears  which  that  lesson  in  the  power  of  the  Execu- 
tive had  engendered,  the  contest  with  Andrew  John- 
son had  been  postponed  until  it  had  been  too  late. 
Jackson  had  carried  his  fight  boldly  to  Congress.  He 
had  forced  his  will  upon  Congress,  and  in  due  time  a 
body  of  Congress  had  stultified  itself  by  mutilating 
its  own  journal  at  the  demand  of  his  friends. 

There  were  cross-currents  of  emotionalism  which 
actuated  the  House  in  the  course  upon  which  it  now 
entered.  Hatreds  had  been  born  of  four  years  of  frat- 
ricidal war.  The  Union  had  been  saved,  at  frightful 
cost  in  blood  and  treasure.  The  great  leader  of  a 
people,  who  had  won  the  war  through  his  steadfast 
courage  and  homely  trust  in  God  had  been  struck  down 
at  the  moment  of  victory. 

Passions  were  inflamed.  The  reaction  from  four 
years  of  self-sacrifice,  of  doubts,  despairs  and  glories, 
engulfed  the  minds  of  men  in  its  powerful  undertow. 
The  professional  politicians  used  the  opportunity  thus 
cast  into  their  hands  to  fasten  their  hold  upon  the 
government.  Their  excesses  were  without  restraint, 
but  with  all  these  confusions  of  mind  ran  also  an  abid- 
ing sense  of  fear  for  the  safety  of  constitutional  gov- 
ernment, and  the  will  to  preserve  it. 

Speaker  Colfax  assumed  a  responsibility  which  the 
whole  genius  of  the  American  system  was  exactly  de- 
signed to  repose  in  his  hands.  The  tremendous  sig- 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  61 

nificance  attached  to  the  definition  by  him  of  a  national 
policy  lay  in  the  fact  that  there  existed  within  him  a 
power  to  enable  him  to  carry  out  the  policy  enunciated. 
Coming  from  a  mere  presiding  officer  of  the  House, 
a  moderator  without  power  or  authority,  without  the- 
force  to  command  support,  such  an  announcement 
would  have  carried  the  importance  attaching  to 
the  statement  of  an  opinion  by  any  one  of  the  two 
hundred  Members  of  the  House,  and  no  more.  Coming 
from  the  Speaker,  clothed  with  the  prerogatives  of  his 
great  office,  it  had  the  meaning  of  an  ultimatum. 
Congress  served  notice  upon  the  President  and  the 
country  that  the  work  of  reconstruction  would  be  in. 
its  hands,  and  its  hands  alone. 

When  Congress  met  southern  men  from  the  seced- 
ing states,  who  offered  their  credentials  as  members, 
were  excluded  from  the  roll-call.  Mr.  Colfax  was  re- 
elected  Speaker  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  thirty- 
nine  to  thirty-six,  and  in  his  address  to  the  House  he 
once  more  proclaimed  the  policy,  not  of  the  Johnson 
administration,  which  was  in  fact  the  administration 
of  Lincoln,  but  of  the  government  of  the  United  States. 
It  was  a  moment  of  magnificence  in  the  splendid  his- 
tory of  legislative  government  in  America,  not  only 
because  of  what  it  then  meant,  but  because  of  the 
influence  it  was  to  have  upon  men's  minds  in  the 
future. 

"The  rebellion  having  overthrown  constitutional 
state  government  in  many  states,"  said  Mr.  Colfax,  "it 
is  yours  to  mature  and  enact  legislation  which,  with  the 
concurrence  of  the  Executive,  shall  establish  them 
anew  on  such  a  basis  of  enduring  justice  as  will  guar- 
antee all  necessary  safeguards  to  the  people,  and 


62         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

afford  what  our  Magna  Charta — the  Declaration 
of  Independence — proclaims  is  the  chief  object  of  gov- 
ernment— protection  to  all  men  in  their  inalienable 
rights.  The  world  should  witness  in  this  great  work, 
the  most  inflexible  fidelity,  the  most  earnest  devotion 
to  the  principles  of  liberty  and  humanity,  the  truest 
patriotism  and  the  wisest  statesmanship." 

An  important  work  incident  to  the  reshaping  of 
the  standing  committees  fell  to  the  Speaker.  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  then  past  seventy  years  of  age,  in  some  re- 
spects an  abler  and  a  stronger  man  than  Colfax,  as 
he  was  more  aggressive  and  more  vindictive,  became 
by  the  appointing  power  of  the  Speaker  chairman  of 
the  newly  created  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and 
Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  succeeded  Mr.  Stevens 
at  the  head  of  Ways  and  Means.  Mr.  Theodore  M. 
Pomeroy,  of  New  York,  was  advanced  to  the  chairman- 
ship of  the  new  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency, 
in  one  of  the  most  important  reorganizations  which  the 
House  had  ever  effected  in  the  direction  of  the  central- 
ization of  the  appropriating  power  in  the  hands  of  a 
single  committee,  charged  with  that  function  exclu- 
sively. The  new  committee  organization  gave  the 
House  a  powerfully  entrenched  leadership  with  which 
to  meet  the  shock  of  the  coming  collision  with  the 
President.  Congress  passed  the  Civil  Rights  Bill  and 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill  over  the  veto,  and  the 
adoption  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  followed.  In 
a  letter  to  a  friend  Mr.  Colfax  wrote  that  President 
Johnson  charged  him  with  being  the  "main  cause  of 
the  inflexibility  of  the  House." 

The  House,  in  the  closing  session  of  the  Thirty- 
Ninth  Congress,  rose  to  a  supreme  height  of  power  in 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  63 

carrying  out  the  will  of  the  people  of  the  Union  who 
had  made  their  sacrifices  of  blood  to  win  the  war. 
Colfax,  throughout  this  trying  period,  and  in  the 
Fortieth  Congress,  when  he  was  again  Speaker,  was 
the  political  leader  of  a  party,  the  head  of  its  business 
organization  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the 
spokesman  of  a  moral  cause.  Under  his  leadership 
'the  House  met  the  attempted  encroachments  of  the 
Executive,  and  declared  its  own  interpretation  of  the 
laws  contrary  to  the  interpretation  placed  upon  them 
elsewhere. 

There  had  been  close  cooperation  between  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  Congress.  That  the  strict  mainte- 
nance of  discipline  in  the  House  in  the  interest  of 
party  solidarity  is  not  incompatible  with  the  complete 
and  harmonious  functioning  as  between  Legislative  and 
Executive  was  shown  in  the  Civil  War  years.  An  im- 
mense amount  of  work  was  accomplished.  Mr.  Elaine 
recalls  *  that  in  the  Thirty-Seventh  Congress,  of  which 
Mr.  Galusha  A.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  Speaker, 
and  whose  first  session  convened  on  July  fourth,  and 
adjourned  on  August  6,  1861,  seventy-six  public  acts 
were  passed  in  but  twenty-nine  working  days,  many  of 
them  long  and  complex  measures  relating  to  the  conduct 
of  the  war,  to  finance,  and  other  subjects  of  great  im- 
portance. "The  spirit  with  which  the  President  and 
Congress  proceeded  in  that  depressing  and  depressed 
period  proved  invaluable  to  the  country,"f  says  Mr. 
Elaine.  "The  situation  had  so  many  elements  of  a 
discouraging  character  that  the  slightest  hesitation  or 
faltering  among  those  controlling  the  administration 

*Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  I,  p.  337. 
f/fctd,,  p.  456. 


64    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

of  the  government  would  have  been  followed  by  dis- 
trust and  dismay  among  the  people."  The  lessons  in 
effective  effort  which  Congress  had  learned  in  working 
with  Lincoln,  proved  valuable  when  the  conflict  with 
Johnson  brought  Congress  and  the  President  into  open 
warfare. 

Yet  the  beginning  of  that  conflict  had  been  laid  in 
the  closing  days  of  the  Lincoln  administration.  It  was 
not  a  personal  contest,  although  Johnson  was  disliked 
by  many  members  of  his  own  party  in  Congress.  It 
was  a  struggle  between  the  legislative  and  the  execu- 
tive branches  of  the  government. 

The  Senate  had  dissented,  in  1864,  in  Mr.  Sum- 
ner's  resolution  on  the  Arkansas  admission,  from  the 
reconstruction  policy  of  President  Lincoln.  Congress 
then  proceeded  to  pass  a  bill,  July  4,  1864,  embodying 
the  views  of  that  branch  on  the  reconstruction  policy  it 
was  proposed  to  pursue. 

This  action  could  not  be  considered  as  anything  but 
a  rebuke  to  the  President  for  having  undertaken  the 
restoration  of  the  Confederate  States  to  the  Union 
without  awaiting  the  initiative  of  Congress,  and  there 
was  a  considerable  sentiment  in  Congress  hostile  to 
the  President  for  an  assumption  of  authority  beyond 
his  constitutional  power.  Mr.  Lincoln  permitted  the 
bill  to  die  without  his  signature,  and  Congress  ad- 
journed. 

"It  must  be  frankly  admitted,"  says  Mr.  Elaine, 
"that  Mr.  Lincoln's  course  was  in  some  of  its  aspects 
extraordinary.  It  met  with  almost  unanimous  dissent 
on  the  part  of  Republican  Members  of  Congress,  and 
violent  opposition  from  the  more  radical  Members  of 
both  Houses.  If  Congress  had  been  in  session  at  the 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  65 

time,  a  very  rancorous  hostility  would  have  been  de- 
veloped against  the  President.  Fortunately  the  Sena- 
tors and  Representatives  had  returned  to  their  states 
and  districts  .  .  .  and  they  found  the  people  united 
and  enthusiastic  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  support.  No  contest 
was  raised,  therefore,  by  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  had  sustained  the  bill  which  the  President  had 
refused  to  approve.  The  pending  struggle  for  the 
presidency  demanded  harmony,  and  by  common  con- 
sent agitation  on  the  question  was  abandoned."* 

Senator  Wade,  of  Ohio,  and  Representative  Henry 
Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland,  chairmen  in  Senate  and 
House  of  the  Committees  on  the  Rebellious  States, 
however,  united  in  a  public  protest  against  the  failure 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  acquiesce  in  the  congressional  pro- 
gram of  reconstruction,  and  denounced  the  pocket  veto 
as  rash  and  fatal,  a  blow  at  the  administration  and 
at  the  principles  of  Republican  government.  "The 
President  was  warned  that  the  support  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  was  'of  a  cause  and  not  of  a  man/  that 
the  'authority  of  Congress  is  paramount  and  must  be 
respected/  that  the  'whole  body  of  Union  men  of  Con- 
gress will  not  submit  to  be  impeached  by  him  of  rash 
and  unconstitutional  legislation,  that  he  must  confine 
himself  to  his  executive  duties — to  obey  and  execute, 
not  make  the  laws  /  that  he  must  suppress  armed  rebel- 
lion by  arms  and  leave  political  reorganization  to 
Congress/'f 

Responsible  leaders  in  Senate  and  House,  in  a 
recess  of  Congress,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  presidential 
campaign  upon  which  the  fate  of  their  party  depended, 


Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  43. 
.,  p.  44. 


66         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

did  not  hesitate  thus  to  express  the  legislative  feeling 
against  the  Executive.  The  President,  sustained  as 
he  had  been  by  reelection,  did  not  renew  the  contest, 
and  when  Congress  passed  a  joint  resolution,  declaring 
certain  states  not  to  be  entitled  to  representation  in 
the  electoral  college,  to  forestall  the  possibility  of  votes 
being  returned  from  Louisiana  and  Arkansas,  Mr. 
Lincoln  signed  it,  and  sent  to  Congress  the  following 
message,  February  8,  1865:* 

"The  joint  resolution  entitled  'Joint  Resolution  de- 
claring certain  States  not  entitled  to  representation  in 
the  electoral  college,'  has  been  signed  by  the  Executive 
in  deference  to  the  view  of  Congress  implied  in  its 
passage  and  presentation  to  him.  In  his  own  view, 
however,  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  convened  under 
the  twelfth  article  of  the  Constitution,  have  complete 
power  to  exclude  from  counting  all  electoral  votes 
deemed  by  them  to  be  illegal,  and  it  is  not  competent 
for  the  Executive  to  defeat  or  obstruct  that  power  by 
a  veto,  as  would  be  the  case  if  his  action  were  at  all 
essential  in  the  matter.  He  disclaims  all  right  of  the 
Executive  to  interfere  in  any  way  in  the  matter  of 
canvassing  or  counting  electoral  votes,  and  he  also  dis- 
claims that  by  signing  said  resolution  he  has  expressed 
any  opinion  on  the  recitals  of  the  preamble  or  any 
judgment  of  his  own  upon  the  subject  of  the  reso- 
lution." 

In  this  message  of  apparent  acquiescence  lay  the 
germ  of  bitter  controversy  between  Executive  and 
Legislative,  but  that  controversy  was  destined  to  arise 
between  Congress  and  Andrew  Johnson,  and  not  be- 
tween Congress  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Mr.  Johnson 


^Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Vol.  VI,  p.  260. 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  67 

was  in  the  White  House  when  the  Thirty-Ninth  Con- 
gress assembled,  and  it  was  under  altered  circum- 
stances that  Mr.  Speaker  Colfax,  in  his  hands  the 
power  of  that  great  office,  laid  down  the  principle  that 
in  the  reconstruction  of  the  South  Congress,  and  not 
the  President,  should  be  supreme.  On  the  first  day 
of  the  session  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Floor  Leader  of  the 
organization  which  controlled  the  House,  and  of  which 
the  Speaker  was  the  head,  offered  a  resolution  for  the 
appointment  of  a  special  committee  to  report  whether 
the  late  Confederate  States  were  entitled  to  be  repre- 
sented in  Congress,  and  providing  that  "until  such 
report  shall  have  been  made,  and  finally  acted  upon  by 
Congress,  no  member  shall  be  received  into  either 
House  from  any  of  the  so-called  Confederate  States." 

Mr.  Stevens  at  once  demanded  the  previous  ques- 
tion. It  was  a  vitally  important  measure,  for  here  was 
to  be  determined  the  policy  of  the  House  which  Mr. 
Colfax  had  enunciated,  and  upon  which  he  had  been 
reelected  to  the  Speaker's  Chair.  Every  parliamentary 
device  was  used  to  facilitate  its  passage,  and  the 
leaders  either  limited  debate,  or  cut  it  off  entirely,  so 
that  the  resolution  was  adopted  within  one  hour's 
time.* 

One  of  the  greatest  contests  between  the  executive 
and  legislative  branches  of  government  in  the  history 
of  the  English-speaking  peoples  was  begun,  a  contest 
whose  psychological  reactions  have  influenced  Ameri- 
can politics  to  the  present  day.  The  Republican  party 
\turned  against  its  own  President,  held  him  up  to  the 
scorn,  contempt  and  animosities  of  the  people,  and 


*History   of  the   Thirty-Ninth   Congress,   by   William   H. 
Barnes,  p.  35. 


68    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

with  the  support  of  the  people,  who  turned  from  the 
Executive  to  Congress  in  one  of  those  sudden  revul- 
sions of  popular  sentiment  of  which  American  history 
contains  other  remarkable  instances,  impeached  him 
and  sought  his  removal  from  office.  Having  launched 
upon  a  course  of  opposition  upon  whose  outcome  the 
whole  future  of  Congress  depended,  appreciating  that 
from  such  a  trial  of  strength  with  the  Executive  the 
Congress  must  emerge  the  victor,  or  suffer  such  a 
weakening  of  its  constitutional  power  that  recovery 
might  be  impossible,  the  House  subordinated  every 
other  consideration  to  that  of  gaining  the  mastery. 

Against  Congress  was  arrayed  the  presidential 
strength,  well-nigh  incomprehensible  in  its  vast  scope, 
fortified  by  the  insidious  persuasiveness  of  patronage, 
which  too  often  in  the  past  had  seduced  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people  to  the  service  of  the  Executive,  a 
power  whose  exercise  had  made  the  people  cynical  and 
skeptical.  On  the  side  of  the  President  were  "big 
business,"  the  banks  and  industry;  and  in  his  Cabinet 
were  men  who  had  helped  Lincoln  to  organize  the  party 
which  had  saved  the  Union,  and  whose  founders  were 
now  engaged  in  civil  war  among  themselves.  To  meet 
such  formidable  force  the  House  increased  the  power 
of  its  leaders  by  submitting  to  a  parliamentary  pro- 
cedure which  all  but  destroyed  the  rights  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  moral  character  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives— not  merely  that  particular  House,  but  the 
institution — was  profoundly  affected  by  the  experi- 
ences growing  out  of  this  struggle,  and  strongly 
marked  traits  left  their  impress  upon  its  composite 
mentality,  its  senses  and  emotions,  whose  results  have 
been  plainly  observable  from  that  tune  to  the  present. 


THE  INEVITABLE  CONFLICT  69 

That  latent  fear  of  the  inevitability  of  eventual  battle 
to  the  death  with  executive  authority  which  had  existed 
since  the  beginning  of  the  government,  and  had  in- 
creased in  certain  types  of  mind  in  Jackson's  day,  was 
intensified  in  the  heart  of  the  House. 

The  conflict  between  Congress  and  President  John- 
son was  followed  by  a  gradual  strengthening  of  organ- 
ized leadership  in  the  House,  owing  in  part  to  the 
necessity  of  meeting  the  exigencies  caused  by  the  large 
increase  in  membership,  and  the  growing  business  of 
the  government,  but  more  to  the  influences  springing 
from  the  subordination  of  the  individual. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  significance  that  the  House 
acted,  from  its  own  point  of  view  and  its  own  concep- 
tion of  its  duty  and  responsibility,  with  the  highest  in- 
telligence. The  rupture  with  the  political  head  of  the 
party  in  the  White  House  was  not  followed  by  a  course 
of  weakness  and  instability.  The  House  functioned. 
This  fidelity  to  its  own  idealism,  this  D'Artagnan  spirit 
which  constantly  inspired  it,  was  essential  to  the  win- 
J  ning  of  the  victory,  which,  the  contest  once  begun, 
the  House  had  to  win  to  survive.  This  was  rendered 
\possible  through  the  power  of  organized,  centralized 
leadership,  and  through  that  power  alone.  Without 
that  power  the  House  would  have  suffered  a  moral  and 
intellectual  disintegration  which  would  have  rendered 
it  incapable  of  pursuing  a  course  dependent  for  its 
success  as  much  upon  consistency  as  upon  determina- 
ion.  Without  that  cohesive  force  within  itself  the  in- 
ividual  Members  would  have  gravitated  naturally  and 
inevitably  to  the  Executive.  "It  is  to  the  eminent  credit 
of  the  Republican  Members  of  Congress  that  they  stood 
in  a  crisis  of  this  magnitude  true  to  principle,"  com- 


70         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ments  Mr.  Elaine,  "firm  against  all  the  power  and  all 
the  patronage  of  the  administration.  No  unmanly 
efforts  to  compromise,  no  weak  shrinking  from  duty, 
sullied  the  fame  of  the  great  body  of  Senators  and 
Representatives."*  Even  the  Whig  party  in  1841, 
under  the  leadership  of  Henry  Clay,  he  points  out,  had 
not  stood  so  solidly  against  John  Tyler. 

From  the  passions  fanned  into  flames  of  hatred 
and  animosity  by  this  death  struggle  between  the  con- 
gressional and  the  presidential  power,  were  to  flow 
/results  influencing  the  whole  future  course  of  the 
I  American  people,  more  profoundly  than  have  any  acts 
'  of  "the  law-making  body  before  or  since.  £he  negro 
was  to  become  not  merely  a  freedman,  but  a  citizen, 
a^Td  his  rights  were  to  be  guaranteed,  not  by  statutes, 
but  by  the  Constitution,  the i  amendment  of  which,  in 
his  interest,  was  to  produce  a  powerful  reaction, 
making  the  people  of  the  United  States  the  most  law- 
lesis  and  the  most  contemptuous  of  law  of  any  people 
on  earth.  In  a  large  part  of  the  nation  at  this  day  the 
constitutional  amendments  which  were  to  have  estab- 
lished the  rights  of  the  black  man  in  the  organic  law 
are  a  dead  letter.  It  can  not  be  doubted  that  this  cir- 
cumstance is  having  powerful  psychological  conse- 
quences in  the  American  mind.  It  remained  for  con- 
stitutional prohibition  of  intoxicants  to  disclose  the  full 
extent  of  the  American  capacity  for  contempt  of  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land. 


^Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  147. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP 

THE  House  of  Representatives  emerged  from  its 
second  great  contest  with  the  power  of  the  President 
conscious  of  its  own  might,  and  with  a  new  determi- 
nation to  extend  its  authority.  Although  the  impeach- 
ment of  Mr.  Johnson  had  failed,  Congress  had  learned 
that  in  the  exercise  of  its  constitutional  prerogatives 
its  wjll  was  superior  to  that  of  the  Executive,  that  it 
not  only  could  make  laws  for  the  republic,  but  deter- 
mine the  policies  of  govejrmnent  without  regard  to  the 
opinions  of  the  Executing*  and  withmit~l:e~ar~ 6f~h~is 
enormous  privilege  of  patronage  and  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  executive  branches  of  the  government 
through  the  removal  of  officials  from  office.  In  the 
contest  the  people  had  supported  Congress  against  the 
President,  whereas  in  1832  the  people  had  supported 
Jackson  against  Congress. 

The  House,  conscious  of  its  strength,  but  dreading 
still  the  power  of  the  Executive,  perceiving  the  influ- 
ence of  public  opinion  in  all  such  tests  of  governmental 
authority,  fortified  itself  against  possible  encroach- 
ment in  the  future. 

The  next  period  in  the  development  of  the  House 
was  to  be  marked  by  the  consolidation  of  the  powers 
through  which  the  majority,  under  the  two-party 
American  system,  controlled  the  machinery  of  legisla- 

71 


72          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tive  government.  The  reconstruction  struggle  had 
taught  the  value  of  party  discipline.  Some  of  the 
measures  which  had  been  passed  over  the  President's 
veto  were  finally  enacted  only  by  resort  to  expedients 
which  had  infringed  upon  the  basic  rights  of  the  in- 
dividual. It  was  the  price  which  the  individuals  had 
to  pay  separately  for  the  advantages  they  gained  col- 
lectively. 

A  new  conception  of  the  speakership  was  born. 

IThe  office  which  carried  with  it  responsibility  for 
orderly  party  government  was  strengthened,  and  as 
the  power  of  the  leadership  was  enhanced  the  ability 
of  the  House  to.f unction  smoothly  and  effectively  grew 
very  greatly.  /The  period  which  witnessed  the  rise  of 
the  speakership  to  its  supreme  height  was  character- 
/  ized  by  the  enactment  of  constructive  legislation  inci- 
dent to  and  essential  to  the  remarkable  economic  devel- 
opment of  the  nation  which  followed  the  close  of  tlie 
Civil  War.  / 

,  It  was'  a  period  of  intense  activity,  of  splendid 
idealism  gradually  succumbing  to  materialism,  of  a 
national  spirituality  which  was  to  end  in  a  reaction  of 
sordid  commercialism,  with  the  statesman  become  the 
servant  of  the  money-changer;  and  in  the  end  political 
revolt. 

The  responsibilities  devolving  upon  Congress  in 
freeing  the  nation  for  the  expansion  and  development 
in  the  West  imposed  upon  it  new  duties,  and  gave  to 
all  its  tendencies  directions  until  then  unknown.  Epics 
as  wonderful  as  those  which  Homer  sings  were  em- 
bodied in  the  statutes  which  enabled  America  to  go 
forward  by  leaps  and  bounds  into  her  place  of  world 
leadership.  /This  period  began  with  the  organization 


73 

of  the  Forty-First  Congress,  on  March  4,  1869,  and 
ended  on  March  19,  1910. . 

James  G.  Elaine  had  come  up  from  the  legislative 
ranks.  He  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House  in  the  Maine 
legislature.  He  had  been  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Republican  organization  under  Colfax  and  Stevens. 
He  had  been  their  lieutenant  on  the  floor  in  the  parlia- 
mentary battles  whereby  the  will  of  the  House  had 
been  made  superior  to  that  of  the  President.  He  had 
been  a  member  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee, 
and  of  the  special  Committee  of  Fifteen  which  had 
considered  the  whole  question  of  reconstruction.  The 
reaction  against  the  high-handed  proceedings  of  the 
Thirty-Ninth  and  Fortieth  Congresses  was  already 
manifest,  and  the  Republican  party  was  developing 
factions.  Ten  years  later  the  "Half -Breeds"  and  the 
"Stalwarts"  were  clearly  defined  and  "Stand-Patters" 
and  "Progressives"  dimly  foreshadowed. 

Mr.  Elaine,   in  accordance  with  the  rule  whose 

/operation  he  had  observed,  had  entered  the  House 

I/ under  forty.     He  was  thirty-nine  when  he  became 

'  Speaker,  the  youngest  man  to  gain  that  distinction 

since  Henry  Clay,  who  was  thirty-four  when  he  first 

took  possession  of  the  gavel.     His  experience  had 

taught  him  that  there  was  no  place  in  the  House  for  a 

vweak  and  inefficient  Speaker.    The  House,  in  his  time, 

had  looked  to  strong  men  for  leadership. 

The  business  of  the  country,  awakening  after  the 
war,  throwing  off  restraints,  eager  to  grasp  the 
beckoning  opportunity,  required  and  demanded  an  able 
government  in  Congress.  Mr.  Elaine  maintained  his 
independence,  and  that  of  the  House,  but  both  the 
House  and  the  Speaker  cooperated  with  President 


74         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Grant,  whose  administration  was  to  be  devoted  largely 
to  the  restoration  of  the  public  credit.  "Elaine,  at 
the  head  of  the  House,  stood  squarely  by  the  dominant 
policy,*  and  with  Garfield  for  his  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  pressed  forward 
each  measure  by  which  the  financial  system  of  the 
country  was  ultimately  set  again  on  the  basis  of  a  coin 
dollar." 

As  Speaker  he  exercised  in  full  the  powers  of  his 
office.  He  organized  the  House,  of  whose  membership 
of  two  hundred  and  forty-three  only  ninety-eight  had 
served  in  the  previous  Congress,  a  fact  which  made  the 
creation  of  the  committees  by  the  Speaker  of  unusual 
importance  in  its  bearing  upon  the  strength  of  the 
Chair.  Elaine  created  the  committees  as  he  desired' 
them  to  be,  bearing  in  mind  the  party  necessity,  nam- 
ing as  chairmen  tried  and  trusted  men  of  his  own 
selection,  men  of  proved  ability  and  loyalty,  who  owed 
their  allegiance  to  him  as  the  head  of  the  party  in  the 
House.  Through  these  lieutenants,  occupying  every 
strategic  place  in  the  organization,  the  Speaker  con- 1 
trolled  the  House  and  made  it  instantly  responsive  to 
the  will  of  the  party  of  which,  at  this  period,  he  was 
one  of  the  great  leaders,  if,  indeed,  not  the  greatest 
leader. 

"The  speakership  of  the  American  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives," he  said  in  his  farewell  address  to  the 
House  in  that  office,  "is  a  post  of  honor,  of  dignity,  of 
power,  of  responsibility.  Its  duties  are  at  once  complex 
and  continuous;  they  are  both  onerous  and  delicate; 
they  are  performed  in  the  broad  light  of  day,  itnder 


*Life  and  Work  of  James  G.  Elaine,  by  John  Clark  Rid- 
path,  p.  121. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP         75 

the  eye  of  the  whole  people,  subject  at  all  times  to  the 
closest  observation,  and  always  attended  with  the 
sharpest  criticism*  I  think  no  other  official  is  held  to 
such  instant  and  such  rigid  accountability.  Parlia- 
mentary rulings,  in  their  very  nature,  are  peremptory : 
almost  absolute  in  authority  and  instantaneous  in 
effect.  They  can  not  always  be  enforced  in  such  a  way 
as  to  win  applause  or  secure  popularity;  but  I  am 
sure  that  no  man  of  any  party  who  is  worthy  to  fill 
this  Chair  will  ever,  see  a  dividing  line  between  duty 
and  policy." 

Elaine. retired  from  the  Speakership  with  a  prestige 
that  seemed  to  assure  to  him  advancement  to  the  only 
office  greater  than  that  which  he  had  filled  for  six 
years.  His  leadership  of  the  Republican  party  in  the 
House  had  made  him  the  acknowledged  head  of  the 
party  in  the  country. 

In  the  process  of  developing  the  power  of  the  Re- 
publican organization  in  the  House,  an  organization 
which  had  observed  with  misgivings  the  spectacle  of 
New  York  State  casting  its  vote  for  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  President  in  the  first  contest  after  the 
close  of  the  war,  and  against  the  soldier  who  had  won 
that  war,  Mr.  Elaine  had  contributed  to  the  creation 
of  a  state  of  mind  which  in  the  end  destroyed  his  hopes. 
The  politician  who  lives  by  reaction  perishes  by  re- 
action, which  is  as  deadly  as  the  sword.  The  power 
of  the  Republican  House  was  to  receive  one  of  those 
checks  which  the.  intuitive  wisdom  of  the  people 
prompts  them  to  interpose,  from  time  to  time,  to  pre- 
vent too  great  a  disturbance  in  the  balance  of  govern- 
ment. The  Democratic  platform  of  1868  had  denounced 
the  reconstruction  acts  of  the  Thirty-Ninth  and  For- 


76    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tieth  Congresses  as  "usurpations,  unconstitutional,  rev- 
olutionary, and  void." 

Mr.  Elaine  himself,  in  the  period  after  his  retire- 
ment from  public  life  with  its  heat  and  passions, 
sitting  down  in  strangely  calm  mood  to  chronicle  his 
observations  of  the  events  in  whose  shaping  he  had 
played  so  conspicuous  a  part,  marveled  that  in  the  first 
presidential  canvas  following  the  Civil  War  "if  Mr. 
Seymour  had  received  the  electoral  vote  of  the  solid 
South  ...  he  would,  in  connection  with  the  vote 
he  received  in  the  North,  have  had  a  majority  over  Gen- 
eral Grant  in  the  Electoral  College."*  "Considering 
the  time  of  the  election,"  he  adds,  "considering  the 
record  and  the  achievements  of  the  rival  candidates, 
the  presidential  election  of  1868  must  be  regarded  as 
the  most  remarkable  and  the  most  unaccountable  in 
our  political  annals." 

The  election  of  Mr.  Cleveland  served  notice  upon 
northern  politicians  that  the  war  between  the  sections 
was  over,  that  the  people  were  tired  of  that  brand  of 
politics  which  discouraged,  for  selfish  reasons,  the 
healing  processes  of  time  and  human  charity  and 
friendship,  that  the  "bloody  shirt"  had  lost  its  appeal 
to  thoughtful  men.  Mr.  Elaine  lost  New  York,  and 
with  it  the  presidency,  in  consequence  of  a  powerful 
reaction  against  the  impulses  of  hatred  and  revenge 
which  he  had  himself  helped  to  set  in  motion,  against 
a  power  created  in  Congress  which  had  raised  party 
leadership  there  to  such  a  degree  of  strength  as  to 
arouse  public  apprehensions.  The  people  turned  instinc- 
tively away  from  Washington  to  the  capital  of  a  state, 
in  the  exercise  of  a  function  inherent  in  them  under 

*  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  408. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP         77 

the  Constitution,  through  which  they  are  at  all  times 
able  to  restore  the  perfect  balance  of  the  organic  law. 

This  was  the  psychology  of  a  political  situation 
which  doubtless  was  as  incomprehensible  to  Mr.  Elaine, 
in  the  excitement  of  the  immediate  campaign  and  the 
agitation  of  his  mind  disturbed  by  blasted  hopes,  as 
had  been  the  "most  remarkable  and  most  unaccount- 
able" campaign  of  1868;  and  the  inapt  alliteration  of 
an  irresponsible  and  inconsequential  "spellbinder"  of 
course  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Repub- 
lican failure  to  carry  in  1884,  the  highly  reactionary, 
independent  and  emotional  state  which  Grant  had  lost 
sixteen  years  -earlier. 

The  Democratic  party  swept  the  country  in  the 
elections  of  1874,  and  Samuel  J.  Randall,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  single  outstanding  Democratic  leader  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  the  entire  period  since  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War,  became  first  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  and  afterward  the 
Speaker,  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  session  of  the 
Forty-Fourth  Congress,  December  4,  1876.  A  student 
of  parliamentary  law,  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
rules  of  the  House,  and  holding  the  opinion  that  they 
should  be  utilized  to  check  "improvident,  passionate, 
and  unconsidered  legislation,  and  to  curb  the  selfish- 
ness and  injustice  of  party  majorities,"  he  bore  his 
full  share  of  the  responsibility  "for  the  stringent  rules 
which  were  in  force  during  all  the  later  years  of  his 
public  service." 

"He  held  with  Mr.  Madison,"  said  Mr.  Buckalew,* 
"that  of  all  the  branches  of  government  in  a  free  coun- 


*In  the  House,  June  14,  1890,  Fifty-First  Congress,  first 
session. 


78          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

try  the  legislative  is  most  liable  to  an  abuse  of  its 
powers,  and  requires  the  strongest  limitations.  Pos- 
sessing the  power  to  make  laws  and  to  change  laws, 
it  is  stronger  than  the  executive  or  the  judiciary, 
charged  with  the  subordinate  or  secondary  duty  of  ex- 
pounding, applying  and  enforcing  those  laws  ;  its  mem- 
bers standing  free  from  constitutional  impeachment, 
and  the  two  Houses,  from  their  very  constitution,  be- 
ing peculiarly  liable  to  hasty,  passionate,  impulsive 
influences,  and  little  fitted  to  resist  them,  it  follows 
that  there  should  be  strong  curbs  upon  their  action 
besides  the  executive  check  of  the  veto  provided  for 
by  the  Constitution.  These  were  matured  views  an- 
nounced by  Mr.  Madison  in  his  later  writings.  It  is 
not  my  business  at  present  to  argue  this  proposition  or 
to  defend  it,  but  to  state  it  as  the  ground  of  Mr. 
Randall's  position  upon  so-called  'obstructive  rules/ 
which  he  assisted  to  form  and  uphold,  and  in  the  utility 
and  necessity  of  which  he  firmly  believed." 

/ThftTnflgt  congpjfMUjng  gpr\n>n  rendered  by  Mr. 
Randall,  whose  great  talents  of  leadership  in  the 
Speaker's  Chair  were  exercised  in  a  period  when  the 
executive  head  of  the  government  belonged  to  a  party 
Bother  than  his  own,  was  in  the  drastic  interpretation 
pf  the  rules  of  the  House  to  prevent  a  filibuster  and 
compel  the  House  to  abide  by  the  result  of  the  report 
of  the  Presidential  Electoral  Commission,  in  1877,  thus 

presidency.    It 


was  an  extraordinary  example  of  the  bold  use  of  the 
enormous  powers  of  the  speakership,  and  illustrates 
the  deep  significance  of  the  destruction  of  such  a  power 
in  the  House,  a  power  which  at  a  time  of  national 
peril,  was  strong  enough  to  hold  in  check  the  passions 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP         79 

and  animosities  of  men  growing  out  of  the  bitterest 
political  contest  in  American  history.  Although  com- 
pletion of  the  electoral  count  meant  certain  defeat  for 
Mr.  Randall's  own  party,  and  although  dilatory  motions 
were  made  from  the  Democratic  side,  and  supported 
by  the  great  majority  of  Democratic  members,  Mr. 
Randall  "planted  himself  upon  the  constitutional  man- 
date that  the  electoral  vote  should  be  counted,  and  he 
held  the  House  should  not  adjourn  or  transact  other 
business  until  this  high  duty  should  be  performed." 
At  a  moment  when  law  and  order  were  threatened 
throughout  the  country,  it  was  the  vast  power  of  the 
speakership  which  saved  the  situation ;  and  there  was 
no  other  power  in  the  House  that  could  have  done  it. 

Yet  it  was  as  leader  of  the  minority,  rather  than 
as  Speaker,  that  Mr.  Randall  displayed  the  brilliant 
qualities  of  mind  which  lifted  him  to  a  place  of  high 
distinction  among  the  truly  great  leaders  of  the  people 
in  Congress.  If  he  had  the  force  of  character  to  pre- 
vent the  employment  of  dilatory  motions  while  occupy- 
ing the  Speaker's  Chair,  he  did  not  scruple  to  employ 
them  himself  when,  a  member  of  the  minority,  his 
function  to  resist  and  not  to  create,  he  gave  a  new 
meaning  to  the  power  of  the  minority,  and  his  defeat 
;>f  the  Force  Bill,  in  the  Forty-Third  Congress, 
Republican  by  nearly  two-thirds,  doubtless  will  long 
remain  the  most  extraordinary  tribute  to  that  great 
power. 

"More  than  any  of  our  public  men,"  says  Mr.  Mc- 
Comas,  of  Maryland,  "it  was  Samuel  J.  Randall  who 
taught  the  country  and  many  administrations  that  the 
power  of  appropriation  is  in  Congress,  that  it  is  not 
in  the  departments  ..."  while  in  the  language 


80         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

of  Mr.  Breckinridge  he  "elevated  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives to  its  true  position,"  made  the  House  domi- 
nate the  executive  department,  restored  to  the  Repre- 
sentatives the  power  of  the  purse,  and  taught  all  that 
"the  House  of  Representatives  was  in  fact  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  and  its  voice  was  the  voice  that 
came  from  the  ballot  box." 

In  the  Forty-Seventh  Congress,  when  the  Repub- 
lican party  returned  to  power  in  the  House,  J.  Warren 
Keif  er,  of  Ohio,  was  elected  Speaker.  Godlove  S.  Orth, 
of  Indiana,  who  had  been  a  candidate  for  the  Chair, 
resigned  from  the  Committee  on  Rules,  as  a  protest 
against  his  committee  assignments,  and  Thomas  B. 
Reed,  of  Maine,  was  appointed  to1  fill  the  vacancy,  the 
other  members  being,  in  addition  to  the  Speaker, 
George  M.  Robeson,  cfi  New  Jersey,  who  had  been 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  the  Cabinet  of  President 
Grant ;  and  Samuel  J.  Randall,  and  J.  C.  S.  Blackburn, 
of  Kentucky,  Democrats.  Mr.  Orth,  in  a  spirit  of 
personal  dissatisfaction,  much  like  that  which  was  to 
be  so  manifest  in  the  House  thirty  years  later,  pro- 
>osed  that  a  standing  board  of  eleven  be  chosen  by 
>arty  caucuses,  and  vested  with  the  power  to  nominate 
ill  committees. 

Mr.  Reed  said,  in  opposition  to  this  suggestion,  that 
whatever  complaint  could  be  made  of  appointments! 
of  committees,  through  pressure  upon  the  Speaker,, 
could  be  made  with  redoubled  force  against  appoint- 
ments made  by  such  a  board. 

"Think  of  the  speakership  of  this  House  going  into 
commission !"  exclaimed  Mr.  Reed.  "Think  of  the  log- 
rolling there  would  be  in  order  to  get  such  a  board 
as  would  favor  various  measures  that  might  be  pre- 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP         81 

sented,  supposing  always  that  there  was  in  the  House 
the  danger  of  the  suggested  corruption  or  ruin.  What 
modest,  good  men  the  board  would  have  to  be !  They 
would  have  to  pass  self-denying  ordinances  and  resist 
the  temptation  to  shine  as  members  of  Judiciary,  Ap- 
propriations, Ways  and  Means,  and  Foreign  Affairs." 
\  The  Speaker  of  the  House,  Mr.  Reed  showed,  was 
under  the  constant  supervision  of  the  House  and  of 
/public  opinion,  a  fact  which  Mr.  Elaine  had  empha- 
I  sized,  but  what  both  of  them  ignored  or  overlooked  was 
the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  of  ascer- 
tainment than  public  opinion,  and  that  it  is  within  the 
very  nature  of  power  to  become  both  blind  and  deaf, 
to  the  extent  of  being  able  to  see  and  hear  only  those 
things  which  it  desires  shall  be  visible  and  audible. 

Always  the  House  has  been  aware  of  the  price  it 
was  obliged  to  pay  for  the  efficiency  of  party  govern- 
ment, never  did  the  yoke  of  discipline  rest  easily  and 
without  galling,  but  usually  it  considered  the  offsetting 
advantages  and,  conscious  of  its  prestige,  and  unwill- 
ing to  impair  its  own  powers  within  the  scheme  of 
government,  declined  to  infringe  upon  those  which  it 
had  lodged  in  the  speakership.  It  was  for  this  reason 
\  that,  when  the  Speaker  submitted  to  the  House  the 
\  question  whether  the  rule  offered  by  Mr.  Orth  was  in 
order,  the  answer  was  in  the  negative.  This  was  the 
position  taken  by  the  unique  statesman  who  was  after- 
ward to  rise  to  the  speakership  and  to  give  to  that 
office  a  greater  strength  and  dignity  than  it  had  yet 
known. 

On  February  7,  1884,  Mr.  Reed  called  attention 
to  the  necessity  for  the  amendment  of  the  rules  of 
the  House.  He  was  then  speaking  from  the  minority 


82    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

side,  the  House  being  under  the  control  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  with  Mr.  Speaker  Carlisle  in  the  Chair. 
He  was  thoroughly  the  politician,  little  troubled  by 
considerations  of  consistency,  and,  as  a  party  leader, 
as  unscrupulous  in  leading  a  filibuster  against  a  ma- 
jority measure  as  later  on  he  was  to  be  bold  and 
unbending  in  dealing  with  that  expedient  of  partisan- 
ship. His  analysis  of  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the 
House  at  that  time  was  merciless. 

"This  House,"  said  Mr.  Reed,  ''does  only  eight  per 
cent,  of  its  business;  and  our  whole  legislation  with 
relation  to  rules  must  hinge  upon  that  important  fact. 
There  is  no  physical  possibility  of  doing  much  more 
than  eight  per  cent.  Now,  the  proposition  of  the 
gentleman  from  Kentucky*  is  that  when  any  bill  is 
not  reported  by  any  committee  within  a  specified  time 
it  shall  at  once,  upon  any  Monday,  become  a  privileged 
bill ;  in  other  words,  it  shall  become  entitled  to  stop  the 
other  business  of  the  House.  .  .  .  Now  here  is  a 
choice  between  evils.  The  question  is,  whether  in 
order  to  remedy  the  evil  of  the  non-action  of  a  com- 
mittee, chosen  by  the  House,  and  supposed  to  represent 
its  views,  you  shall  give  to  an  individual  Member  the 
right  to  make  privileged  nine-tenths  of  the  business  of 
this  House,  and  to  make  such  business  privileged,  not 
because  a  committee  recommends  it,  but  simply  and 
solely  because  a  committee  does  not  recommend  it." 

The  situation  complained  of  by  the  author  of  the 

*Mr.  Turner:  An  amendment  offered  to  Rule  XXIV,  pro- 
viding that  when  a  committee  had  failed  or  refused  to  act 
favorably  or  unfavorably  on  a  bill  or  resolution  for  thirty 
days  it  should  be  in  order  for  the  Member  proposing  it,  on  any 
Monday,  after  the  morning  hour,  to  move  to  discharge  the  com- 
mittee, the  House  then  to  dispose  of  the  matter.  Congressional 
Record,  Forty-Eighth  Congress,  first  session,  p.  964. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP         83 

proposed  amendment,  Mr.  Turner,  grew  out  of  the 
practise  of  committee  veto,  through  failure  to  act  on  a 
measure,  a  state  of  affairs  which,  he  declared,  could  pre- 
vent a  majority  of  the  House  from  voting  for  a  public 
bill  or  resolution  favored  by  a  majority  of  the  Members. 

"One  would  hardly  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Turner,  "that 
a  committee  would  resort  to  this  method  to  prevent 
action  by  this  House ;  yet,  sir,  I  state  without  fear  of 
contradiction  that  it  has  often  been  done,  and  the  fact 
is  well  known  to  every  old  Member  who  hears  my  voice. 
None  will  deny  it.  Why,  sir,  the  pending  amendment 

an  illustration  of  the  evil  sought  to  be  remedied. 
I  have  offered  this  amendment  at  the  beginning  of  four 
sessions  of  Congress,  and  it  has  been  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Rules,  and,  sir,  up  to  this  day  the  com- 
mittee has  failed  to  make  any  report  on  this  amend- 
ment, and  now,  when  I  am  attempting  to  offer  it,  we 
are  cut  off  by  the  previous  question,  which  has  been 
moved  by  the  gentleman  who  has  charge  of  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Rules.  It  is  true  I  have  the  poor 
privilege  of  seven  minutes  to  offer  reasons  in  favor 
of  the  amendment,  but  whether  we  are  even  now  to  be 
allowed  a  vote  on  the  amendment  I  do  not  know. 
.  .  .  Ought  a  majority  of  this  House  to  be  thus 
handicapped  by  seven  men  ?  Ought  such  an  evil  to  exist 
without  a  remedy?  I  assert  hi  the  hearing  of  the 
gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Randall]  and  the 
'other  members  of  the  committee  that  thej£_ia_na- 
remedy  under  the  rules  to  force  a  committee,  by  a 
majority  vote,  to  report  back  a  public  bill  or  resolution 
to  this  House.  A  majority  sits  here  powerless."* 

* Congressional  Record,  Forty-Eighth  Congress,  first  session, 
p.  964. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED 

WHEN  Mr.  Reed  became  leader  of  the  Republican 
minority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  he  continued 
his  agitation  for  reforms  which  should  strengthen  the 
rules,  and  the  speakership,  which  came  to  him  with 
the  organization  of  the  Fifty-First  Congress,  gave  him, 
as  the  undisputed  leader  of  his  party,  an  opportunity 
to  enhance  the  power  and  dignity  of  the  lower  branch 
of  the  legislative  body. 

The  Fifty-First  Congress  was  the  first  in  fourteen 
years  in  which  the  Republican  party  had  a  clear  ma- 
jority in  both  Houses.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Forty-Seventh  Congress,  Democratic  speakers  had  pre- 
sided over  the  House  since  1875.  Under  Reed,  Hender- 
son and  Cannon,  the  Republican  party  was  to  establish 
a  remarkable  record  in  efficiency  in  government.  From 
1895  the  hold  of  the  party  upon  the  House  was  to  seem 
well-nigh  unbreakable. 

Mr.  Reed's  principal  lieutenants  were  William  Mc- 
Kinley  and  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  both  of  whom  were  to 
attain  great  distinction  through  their  service  in  the 
House.  Mr.  Speaker  Reed  organized  the  new  House, 
appointing  the  committees,  and  creating  a  strong  party 
organization.  He  placed  McKinley,  who  had  been  the 
most  formidable  contestant  against  him  for  the  speak- 
ership,  at  the  head  of  Ways  and  Means,  a  post  which 
carried  with  it  the  floor  leadership,  and  the  responsi- 

84 


THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED  85 

bility  of  sponsoring  the  party's  fiscal  program.  The 
loss  of  the  speakership  was  to  make  McKinley  Presi- 
dent, the  second  place  in  the  House  organization  which 
fell  to  him  imposing  upon  him  the  duty  of  initiating 
legislation  on  the  tariff,  the  leading  political  issue  be- 
fore the  country.  The  McKinley  Bill,  which  embodied, 
perhaps,  the  most  thorough  revision  of  the  tariff  which 
has  ever  been  attempted,  went  into  effect  one  month 
before  the  congressional  election,  with  disastrous  con- 
sequences so  far  as  that  campaign  was  concerned ;  but 
the  issue  of  "McKinleyism"  which  it  raised  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  was  later  on  to  return  the  Republi- 
can party  to  power  in  every  branch  of  the  government, 
and  to  put  its  author  in  the  White  House. 

Mr.  McKinley  also  became  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Rules,  as  did' Mr.  Cannon,  whom  Reed  made 
chairman  of  Appropriations.  The  Rules  Committee 
was  thus  composed  of  Mr.  Reed,  the  Speaker ;  Mr.  Mc- 
Kinley and  Mr.  Cannon,  of  the  majority;  and  Mr. 
Randall  and  Mr.  Carlisle,  of  the  minority.  There  has 
probably  never  been  a  stronger  Committee  on  Rules 
in  the  entire  history  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 
There  has  never  been  a  greater  concentration  of  House 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  small  group  of  any  party  as 
in  the  hands  of  the  three  Republican  members  of  this 
committee.  These  three  men,  Reed,  McKinley  and 
Cannon,  held  the  speakership,  the  chairmanship  of  the 
Committee  on  Rules,  the  governing  board  of  the  House; 
the  chairmanship  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  the  chair- 
manship of  Appropriations,  and  the  floor  leadership. 
It  was  power  raised  to  the  nth  degree. 

The  Rules  Committee  was  thus  composed  of  five 
men ;  but  distinguished  as  they  were,  and  able  as  they 


86         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

were,  and  strong  intellectually  as  they  individually 
were,  the  two  minority  members  were  wholly  without 
consequence.  The  entire  power  of  the  committee  was 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  the  Speaker  and  the  chairmen 
of  the  Committees  on  Ways  and  Means  and  Appropria- 
tions, the  two  committees  having  absolute  authority 
over  every  dollar  of  revenue  to  be  raised  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  government,  over  the  imposition  of  all 
taxes,  over  the  levying  of  all  customs  duties,  and  over 
every  penny  to  be  expended  from  the  public  Treasury. 

Under  the  rules  the  Speaker  appointed  all  commit- 
tees, and  every  Member  owed  his  standing  in  the  House, 
his  opportunity  to  rise  to  prominence,  to  the  Speaker, 
in  whose  hands  reposed,  also,  the  power  of  recognition. 
Whoever  failed  to  catch  the  Speaker's  eye  might 
twiddle  his  thumbs  until  the  end  of  the  session.  Until 
the  Speaker  chose  to  recognize  him  he  was  impotent, 
and  could  obtain  no  consideration  for  the  measures  in 
which  his  constituents  were  interested.  The  power  of 
recognition  sent  to  the  Speaker's  anteroom,  before  the 
House  convened  each  day,  humbly,  and  with  hat  in 
hand,  every  Member  who  desired  recognition  on  the 
floor  for  consideration  of  a  bill  or  resolution. 

The  Speaker  of  the  House  had  always  had,  since 
April  7,  1789,  the  right  to  recognize  for  debate,  and 
still  has  to-day ;  but  the  power  of  the  Speaker  to  recog- 
nize out  of  order,  to  accord  or  deny  consideration  of 
any  particular  bill,  was  something  far  beyond  this. 
It  was  one  of  the  great  prerogatives  of  the  speaker- 
ship.  Essentially  this  power  of  the  Speaker's  recogni- 
tion was  only  the  power  of  any  individual  Member  to 
object  to  consideration  of  a  measure,  but  whatever  it 
was  in  theory,  in  practise  it  was  utilized  in  such  a  way 


THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED  87 

as  to  concentrate  this  power  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
man,  and  that  one  the  arbiter  of  the  fate  of  his  associ- 
ates. Reed  had  been  in  the  House  twelve  years  before 
he  was  advanced  to  the  speakership,  that  long  period 
of  service  giving-  him  in  addition  a  natural  advantage 
by  reason  of  his  great  grasp  of  the  business  of  the 
House  and  his  familiarity  with  the  details  of  its  work. 
As  early  as  1832  the  pressure  of  business  began  to 
bring  into  use  the  request  for  consideration  of  meas- 
ures by  unanimous  consent.  The  Speaker's  power  to 
recognize  out  of  order,  as  used  abnormally  under  Mr. 
Reed,  grew  out  of  the  right  of  recognition  in  debate. 
This  great  power,  as  interpreted,  placed  the  entire 
House  of  Representatives  under  obligation  to  the 
Speaker. 

Under  this  system  the  Speaker's  two  lieutenants, 
supported  by  the  other  leading  men  of  the  organiza- 
tion, controlled  every  avenue  to  preferment  through 
the  federal  purse,  every  dollar  a  Member  might  hope 
to  see  expended  for  an  improvement  in  his  district, 
a  new  post-office,  a  customs  house,  a  river  or  harbor 
development,  the  dredging  of  a  creek  or  the  construc- 
tion of  a  bridge,  and  every  duty  he  might  desire  to  see 
levied  in  a  tariff  bill  for  the  support  or  encouragement 
of  an  industry  in  which  his  constituents  were  inter- 
ested, and  upon  the  securing  of  which  his  very  political 
life  might  depend.  The  man  who  dared  oppose  his 
will  to  that  mighty  power  would  be  bold  indeed,  or 
utterly  reckless  and  desperate.  Naturally,  few  had  the 
hardihood  to  do  so. 

The  domination  of  that  remorseless  instrument  of 
strong  party  government  was  rendered  still  more  effec- 
tive. There  being,  in  addition  to  himself,  but  two  ma- 


88    THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

jority  members  of  the  Rules  Committee,  the  Speaker 
could  summon  them  to  his  private  room  by  the  nod  of 
his  head  or  the  crook  of  a  finger.  There  weie  no  delays 
in  getting  them  together,  for  they  were  always  present 
when  the  House  was  in  session.  Both  of  them  owed 
to  him  the  places  which  they  held  in  the  political 
hierarchy  of  the  House.  Both  were  bound  to  him  by 
ties  of  personal  loyalty  and  party  fealty.  Both  had 
been  selected  for  known  qualities  and  proved  fidelity. 
In  five  minutes,  seated  about  a  table,  they  could  draft 
a  special  rule,  as  agreed  upon  among  themselves.  They 
could  then  summon  the  minority  members  to  a  meeting 
\of  the  full  Rules  Committee.  Mr.  Reed  was  able  to 
lhave  the  entire  machinery  required  for  putting  through 
lany  measure  he  desired  smoothly  running  inside  of  ten 
minutes.  Any  sudden  emergency  that  might  arise  un- 
expectedly could  be  met  instantly.  A  man  of  imposing 
appearance,  of  impelling  force  of  will  and  mentality, 
overriding  his  colleagues  by  sheer  force  of  character, 
Mr.  Reed  was  gifted  with  a  sardonic  humor.  It  was 
his  custom,  when  he  and  McKinley  and  Cannon  agreed 
upon  a  program,  and  Carlisle  and  Randall  had  ap- 
peared in  the  Speaker's  room,  to  extend  the  typewrit- 
ten special  rule  which  had  been  agreed  upon  and  say 
with  grim  sarcasm,  "Gentlemen,  we  have  decided  to 
perpetrate  the  following  outrage."  In  this  bold  and 
perfectly  brazen  manner  would  the  minority  be  in- 
formed of  the  purpose  of  the  majority  leaders  to  pass 
a  bill,  of  however  much  importance,  under  a  special 
rule,  a  rule  which  might  prevent  the  offering  of  amend- 
ments, and  limit  debate  to  forty  minutes.  It  was  im- 
material, under  this  system,  whether  the  bill  dealt 
with  a  small  matter  or  a  large  one.  One  vitally  affect- 


89 

ing  a  hundred  millions  of  people  could  be  put  through 
the  House  as  easily  as  one  affecting  a  handful  of 
government  wards  on  an  Indian  reservation.  Ten  dol- 
lars, or  ten  millions,  it  was  all  the  same.  If  Mr.  Carlisle 
and  Mr.  Randall  desired  to  acquiesce  in  the  "outrage" 
they  could  do  so.  If  not  the  Speaker  controlled  the 
committee  by  a  majority  of  one  anyhow.  The  rule 
would  be  adopted,  and  forthwith  reported  and  acted 
upon.  The  House  functioned  noiselessly,  if  not  pain- 
lessly. 

The  power  of  the  Speaker  with  respect  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Rules  had  been  gradually  acquired.  There 
had  been  a  select  Committee  on  Rules  in  the  House 
from  1789.  On  June  14, 1858,  a  resolution  was  agreed 
to  authorizing  the  appointment  of  a  Committee  on 
Rules  to  revise  the  rules  of  the  House,  and  the  Speaker, 
Mr.  James  L.  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  was  placed  on 
this  committee.  Thus  the  presence  of  the  Speaker  on 
Rules,  as  its  chairman,  dates  from  the  Thirty-Fifth 
Congress.  Under  the  revision  of  the  rules  which  oc- 
curred in  1880  it  was  made  a  standing  committee,  with 
a  membership  of  five,  and  in  1891  the  right  to  report 
at  any  time  was  conferred  upon  it.  In  1893,  under  the 
speakership  of  Mr.  Crisp,  it  was  given  the  right  to  sit 
during  the  sessions  of  the  House. 

The  Rules  Committee  had  been  originally  a  select 
committee,  and  was  not  especially  important.  The 
power  of  the  committee  did  not  begin  until  the  be- 
ginning of  the  practice  of  bringing  in  special  orders 
for  consideration,  and  method  of  consideration,  of  any 
special  order  of  business.  This  growth  of  power  fol- 
lowed the  expansion  of  the  House  and  the  increase  in 
its  business.  As  the  Rules  Committee  grew  the  power 


90         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

of  the  Speaker  was  increased.  As  far  back  as  1883 
the  House  first  began  the  practise  of  making  a  special 
order  by  a  majority  vote  on  a  report  from  the  Com- 
mittee on  Rules,  and  from  this  time  there  was  a  steady 
increase  in  the  use  of  this  order.  Every  tariff  bill,  up 
to  the  time  of  the  enactment  of  the  Underwood  Law, 
was  passed  under  a  special  order  from  the  Committee 
on  Rules,  both  Republicans  and  Democrats  making 
use  of  it. 

The  "hour  rule"  had  been  adopted  many  years  be- 
fore, when  unlimited  debate  began  endangering  ap- 
propriation bills.  As  the  membership  of  the  House 
steadily  increased  the  legitimate  business  demanding 
attention  could  not  be  transacted  if  every  Member 
were  given  unrestricted  right  to  the  floor.  In  1820, 
during  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Clay,  the  belligerent  and 
loquacious  John  Randolph  spoke  for  four  hours  on  one 
occasion  on  the  Missouri  Bill,  and  an  effort  was  then 
made,  and  was  renewed  in  1833,  to  limit  debate  in  the 
House  to  one  hour. 

This  reform,  necessitated  by  the  unwieldly  propor- 
tions of  the  House,  was  finally  accomplished  under  Mr. 
Speaker  White,  in  1841,  when  the  Whig  party  was  in 
control,  the  "hour  rule"  then  being  first  adopted  as  a 
special  rule;  and  in  1842  it  was  made  one  of  the  stand- 
ing rules  of  the  House.  It  was  one  of  those  instances 
in  which  the  rights  of  the  individual  were  sacrificed 
to  the  common  welfare.  The  House  was  thus,  at  an 
early  date,  obliged  to  limit  debate  in  order  that  the 
public  business  might  be  expedited,  whereas  the  Senate, 
priding  itself  upon  being  the  more  deliberative  body 
of  the  two,  clung  tenaciously  to  the  privilege  of  free 


THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED  91 

and  unlimited  speech.  There  were  many  times  when 
the  public  business  came  to  a  virtual  standstill  in  the 
Senate  because  of  this,  and  when  the  majority  party 
was  all  but  powerless  to  exercise  its  will,  and  this  in 
a  body  whose  membership  has  never  exceeded  ninety- 
six. 

Still  further  restrictions  upon  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  Member  differentiated  the  House  from  the 
Senate  in  marked  degree.  The  so-called  "gag  rule"  of 
the  lower  body  has  reference  to  the  "previous  question" 
as  well  as  to  special  rules.  The  Senate  does  not  have 
the  previous  question.  There  is  a  cloture  rule  which 
is  instituted  by  petition  of  sixteen  or  more  Senators 
and  adopted  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  after  which  no  Sen- 
ator may  speak  more  than  one  hour.  The  rule  that  a 
Senator  shall  confine  himself  to  the  subject  of  the 
matter  under  consideration  is  not  enforced,  and  in 
consequence  of  these  two  circumstances  the  United 
States  Senate  has  remained  until  this  time  the  only 
absolutely  open  forum  of  mankind  on  earth.  Freedom 
of  speech  has  withstood  the  assaults  prompted  by  im- 
patience and  a  willingness  to  see  an  exceptional  right 
sacrificed  to  expediency,  but  even  in  a  body  so  small 
as  the  Senate  cloture  would  not  cure  a  condition  grow- 
ing out  of  wide  divergence  of  opinion  existing  within 
the  membership  of  the  majority  party,  and  it  is  such 
differences  as  these  which  the  advocates  of  the  change 
to  the  system  in  vogue  in  the  House,  with  some  modi- 
fications, have  really  sought  to  cure.  The  agitation 
for  cloture  in  the  Senate  has  been  essentially  decadent. 

The  previous  question  is  a  highly  privileged  motion 
in  the  procedure  of  the  House,  and  if  adopted  cuts  off 


92 

all  debate  and  all  amendment,  except  one  amendment 
by  way  of  a  motion  to  recommit.  The  demand  for  the 
previous  question  is  not  debatable. 

There  was  still  another  device  which  the  great  Re- 
publican Speakers  utilized  to  enforce  ruthless  efficiency 
under  the  party  system.  This  was  the  caucus.  It  was 
long  regarded  as  a  necessary  complement  to  the  other 
instruments  of  party  domination,  and  always  provoked 
a  spirit  of  revolt  among  men  of  independent  cast  of 
mind.  Under  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Reed  the  caucus 
system  never  worked  perfectly,  but  it  worked  effec- 
tually. It  sought  to  commit  members  of  the  party,  in 
secret  and  binding  conference,  to  a  party  program 
agreed  upon  in  advance  of  the  action  in  the  House, 
and  it  gave  to  the  organization  a  powerful  weapon  for 
the  coercion  of  recalcitrants  within  the  party.  Those 
who  rebelled  against  being  bound  by  caucus  action 
were  marked  and  punished,  for  the  Speaker  not  only 
had  the  power  to  appoint  Members  of  the  House  to 
places  on  committees,  but  he  had  the  power  of  removal, 
and  this  power  the  strongest  of  these  party  leaders 
did  not  hesitate  to  use.  In  the  House  the  system  led 
to  abuses  and  helped  to  fan  the  flames  of  growing  re- 
sentment in  the  minds  of  men  of  liberal  tendencies 
of  thought. 

The  Republicans  of  the  Senate  had  utilized  the 
caucus,  but  many  years  before  it  was  finally  destroyed 
in  the  House  as  a  part  of  the  campaign  for  the  liberal- 
ization of  the  rules,  it  had  fallen  into  decline  at  the 
other  end  of  the  Capitol.  During  the  administration 
of  President  Grant  the  Republican  caucus  deposed 
Charles  Sumner  from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Foreign  Relations,  electing  Simon  Cameron 


THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED  93 

in  his  stead,  in  consequence  of  intemperate  criticism 
of  the  President  which  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts 
had  made  at  a  private  dinner.  The  reaction  against 
this  has  been  given  as  one  of  the  causes  of  the  decline 
of  the  Republican  caucus  at  the  Senate ;  but  whatever 
the  reason,  for  many  years  the  conference,  whose  de- 
cisions are  not  binding,  has  been  employed  by  both 
parties,  and  Senators  of  particularly  strong  indepen- 
dence of  mind  have  even  declined  to  attend  these  party 
meetings. 

In  the  House  the  caucus  was  an  important  part  of 
the  machinery  of  party  government.  Partisanship  was 
Synonymous  with  political  virtue.  It  was  insisted  upon 
as  a  necessity  under  the  American  system,  and  was 
sustained  by  tradition.  With  the  power  of  the  Speaker 
over  committee  appointments  went  the  authority, 
vested  in  him,  to  make  the  arrangements  of  the  pro- 
portion of  the  members  according  to  their  party  align- 
ment, in  which  selections  party  considerations  had  en- 
tered for  many  years.  As  far  back  as  1836  a  rule  was 
proposed  that  it  should  be  the  duty  of  the  Speaker  "to 
appoint  a  majority,  at  least,  of  the  members  of  each 
standing  committee,  without  respect  to  party,"  but 
the  deeply  ingrained  party  instinct,  born  of  the  Consti- 
tution itself,  was  too  strong,  and  the  proposal  was  re- 
jected.* Government  through  party  had  become  the 
established  custom,  and  was  rigidly  adhered  to.  As 
early  as  the  Twenty-Seventh  Congress  Mr.  Charles  J. 
Ingersoll,  of  Pennsylvania,  in  a  speech  in  the  House 
said  that  the  committees  had  been  selected  on  party 
and  political  grounds  during  the  thirty  years  in  which 
he  had  had  experience  in  the  House,  which  would 

"Hinds'  Precedents,  Section  4477. 


94    THE  LEADERSHIP  OP  CONGRESS 

carry  the  custom  back  to  the  Thirteenth  Congress,  in 
1813 ;  and  in  the  Twenty-Fifth  Congress  Mr.  Sergeant 
S.  Prentiss,  of  Mississippi,  criticized  Speaker  Polk, 
"not  for  making  up  partisan  committees,  for  that  was 
admitted  to  have  been  the  custom;  but  for  having 
given  too  small  minority  representation." 

Thus  the  whole  tendency,  during  the  period  of  de- 
velopment in  legislative  government,  was  to  emphasize 
and  exalt  the  idea  of  party.  The  party  was  responsible 
to  the  country,  the  leaders  responsible  to  the  party, 
and  with  their  responsibility  went  the  power  necessary 
to  its  discharge. 

The  power  of  the  Speaker  would  have  been  absolute 
but  for  one  thing — the  filibuster.  All  minorities,  in 
any  assemblage,  resort  to  the  employment  of  tactics 
calculated  to  hinder  and  prevent  action  upon  measures 
opposed  by  them.  Mr.  Reed  himself  had  engaged  in 
filibustering  when  he  had  been  in  the  minority  party 
in  the  House,  and  had  justified  his  course.  While  there 
had  been  various  expedients  for  delaying  the  transac- 
tion of  the  business  of  a  legislative  body,  the  favorite 
method  in  the  Congresses  before  Reed's  consolidation 
of  power  was  for  minority  Members  to  refuse  to  an- 
swer when  their  names  were  called  on  a  vote  by  ayes 
and  noes,  thus  destroying  a  quorum.  Such  tactics 
necessitated  frequent  roll-calls,  which  are  destructive 
of  time.  Mr.  Reed  had  originally  upheld  the  right  of 
the  minority  to  obstruct,  defending,  January  28,  1880, 
the  commonly  accepted  construction  of  the  Constitu- 
tion respecting  the  quorum. 

"It  is  not  the  visible  presence  of  Members,"  he  said, 
"but  their  judgment  and  their  votes  that  the  Constitu- 
tion calls  for."  If  this  was  his  honest  conviction,  at  a 


THE  SPEAKERSHIP  OF  REED  95 

time  when  no  responsibility  for  the  orderly  conduct 
of  the  government's  business  rested  upon  him,  he 
changed  his  mind  when  he  took  the  reins  of  power  in 
the  Fifty-First  Congress,  upsetting  his  previous  inter- 
pretation of  the  right  of  a  minority  to  interfere  with 
the  process  of  legislative  enactment,  and  substituting 
for  it  the  doctrine  of  the  unqualified  right  of  a  majority 
to  rule.  On  January  29,  1890,  Mr.  Reed  rendered  a 
revolutionary  ruling  in  counting  a  physical  quorum  in 
the  House  by  recording  as  present  Members  of  the 
minority  who  had  declined  to  answer  when  their  names 
had  been  called.  The  power  of  the  Speaker  had  been 
made  absolute  and  complete.  It  had  been  placed  be- 
yond the  reach  of  any  menace  save  that  of  revolt  or 
party  disloyalty. 

In  attaining  perfection  in  parliamentary  absolutism 
Mr.  Reed  had  planted  in  the  House  the  seeds  of  both 
of  these.  They  were  to  be  an  even  twenty  years  in 
germinating,  and  these  two  decades  were  to  be  a  period 
of  unparalleled  achievement  in  the  administration  of 
government  under  the  Republican  party. 

Mr.  Speaker  Reed  had  vindicated  the  right  of  a  ma- 
jority to  govern.  To  accomplish  this  end  he  had  anni- 
hilated the  individual,  but  his  situation  was  desperate. 
Without  the  power  to  prevent  Democratic  filibustering 
the  House  could  not  have  functioned.  The  decision  in 
counting  a  physical  quorum  permitted  Mr.  Reed  to 
carry  out  the  legislative  program  of  his  party.  A  crisis 
in  the  history  of  the  House  had  been  reached,  and  had 
been  met. 

"The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States/'  said 
Mr.  Reed  himself,*  in  commenting  at  a  later  date  upon 

*North  American  Review,  August,  1892,  p.  235. 


96         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

his  ruling1,  "has  followed  the  judgment  of  every  other 
tribunal  that  ever  passed  upon  the  question,  and  pro- 
nounced with  the  same  unanimity  which  characterized 
the  others  that  a  'present  quorum*  is  the  only  quorum 
contemplated  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."* 

The  decision  by  Mr.  Speaker  Reed,  which  wiped 
out  at  a  single  stroke  the  long-established  precedents 
of  the  House,  revolutionary  though  it  was,  and  destruc- 
tive though  it  was  of  the  unbridled  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual, nevertheless  was  sustained  by  the  House  itself 
when  an  appeal  was  taken  from  the  ruling  of  the  Chair. 

*U.  S.  vs.  Ballin,  144  U.  S.,  p.  1,  opinion  by  Mr.  Justice 
Brewer;  Hinds'  Precedents,  Section  2904,  Vol.  IV,  p.  72. 


CHAPTER  VII 
DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM 

THE  administration  which  Mr.  Reed  gave  to  the 
House,  and  which  Mr.  Henderson  passed  on  to  Mr. 
Cannon,  to  be  employed  in  the  interest  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  under  Mr.  Roosevelt,  was  a  system  which 
worked.  In  this  the  organization  found  its  justifi- 
cation. Moreover,  it  was  exactly  in  harmony  with 
Republican  genius  for  government,  and  with  the 
whole  temperament  and  tradition  of  the  successor  to 
the  Federalists  and  the  Whigs.  It  was  the  most  effi- 
cient instrumentality  of  party  government  that  the 
American  political  system  has  ever  produced,  and 
the  most  despotic. 

The  reaction  was  necessarily  inevitable  and  dev- 
astating. The  absolutism  of  Reed  and  Cannon  ended 
in  schism;  and  the  election  of  Woodrow  Wilson  in 
1912,  when  the  Republican  candidate  for  President 
carried  two  states  unimportant  politically,  is  one  of 
the  most  striking  of  those  political  phenomena  which 
from  time  to  time  mark  the  almost  automatic  restora- 
tion of  the  constitutional  balance  of  power.  The 
strong  Congress  was  to  give  way  to  the  strong  Presi- 
dent, in  due  course  of  time. 

The  political  instincts  of  Speaker  Reed  enabled 
him  to  perceive  that  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  required  a  preponderance  of  power  in, 

97 


98          THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Congress,  and  not  in  the  White  House.     The  true 
successor  of  Henry  Clay,  he  organized  a  party  ma- 
chine in  the  spirit  in  which  the  great  commoner  had 
proclaimed  and  maintained  the  doctrine  of  legislative 
independence.    Mr.  Reed  trod  naturally  in  the  path- 
way which  had  been  followed  by  Colfax. 
\        So  long  as  the  Republican  party  remained  gener- 
\  ally  true  to  its  fundamental  principles  and  was  faith- 
|  ful  to  its  constitutional  theories,  it  dominated  the  gov- 
1  ernment  of  the  United  States  through  the  power  of 
\  the  Congress  with  a  force  and  character  which  were 
majestic.    When  it  forgot  the  political  precepts  which 
had  elevated  it  to  distinction  it  fell  into  decline;  but 
this  was  not  to  be  in  Reed's  day.    The  true  Republi- 
can conception  of  Congress  is  a  body  working  with, 
and  not  under,  the  President. 

The  inherent  honesty  in  Reed's  ruling  on  the  con- 
stitutional quorum  was  apparent  as  soon  as  he  had 
enunciated  it.    It  needed  only  the  decision  of  the  Chair 
to  make  it  clear.    It  is  the  rule  to-day,  for  it  was  a 
decision  founded   upon  common  sense  and  logic  as 
well  as  upon  the  Constitution.    The  Democratic  party, 
which  fought  it  so  bitterly,  came  to  it  in  the  sequel. 
f|>lr.  Reed's  conception  of  responsible  government  un- 
/  der  the  American  two-party  system  was  universally 
/  recognized  as  the  true  one. 

The  Republican  theory  of  party  government  was 
generally  predicated  upon  the  same  constitutional  idea 
which  the  Whig  school  had  formulated  as  a  principle 
under  Clay  in  Madison's  time,  and  in  the  contest 
against  Jackson.  The  Republican  party  under  Reed 
and  Cannon  perfected  and  strengthened  party  gov- 
ernment in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  conse- 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  99 

quence  of  the  subconscious  pursuit  of  the  political 
ideal.  It  was  not  an  original  conception,  nor  was  it 

\new.  The  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  party 
has  everywhere  been  recognized  as  essential  to  all 
party  alliances.  The  nature  of  the  compact  is  not 
peculiar  to  the  American  House  of  Representatives, 
where  under  Reed  the  whole  organization,  actuated 
by  common  principles  and  impulses,  was  devoted  to 
a  single  object.  The  idea  had  been  conceived  and 
the  practise  perfected  in  England  long  before  Reed's 
day.  "The  united  body  must  move  together;  there 
must  be  no  straggling;  no  hanging  back  or  breaking 
line  for  the  pursuit  of  honest  crotchets;  there  must 
be  a  total  surrender  of  opinion — a  tacit  submission  to 
orders ;  no  man  must  think  for  himself ;  individual  con- 
victions must  be  sacrificed  to  unity  of  purpose. 
.  .  .  To  this  principle  the  Tory  party  owe 
everything;  to  the  absolute  impossibility  of  acting 
upon  it,  consistently  with  the  higher  obligations  of 
conscience,  the  Liberal  party  may  attribute  their 
weakness  and  dispersion."* 

The  structure  which  Reed  reared  crumbled  when 
his  party,  unbalanced  and  bewildered,  became  per- 
meated with  the  spirit  of  reaction  from  within.  The 
flower  bloomed,  and  decay  set  in,  in  accordance  with 

)the  inexorable  law  of  nature.  The  period  of  fruition 
was  brilliant  while  it  lasted.  The  Democratic  reac- 
tion which  followed  the  close  of  the  Fifty-First  Con- 
gress arrested  the  movement,  but  could  not  long  hin- 
der it.  The  House  moved  forward  steadily  toward  the 
perfection  of  a  political  principle,  and  the  attainment 


*Life   of   George    Canning,   by    Robert    Bell;    Harper   & 
Brothers,  1846,  p.  120. 


100       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

of  a  political  ideal,  as  instinctively  as  the  silkworm 
spins  its  web. 

It  was  the  theory  of  Mr.  Reed  that  the  essence  of 
party  government  is  discipline.  Without  it  a  parlia- 
mentary body  so  large  as  the  House  had  become  even  in 
his  time  could  not  function.  This  he  enforced  as  the 
first  rule  of  order.  The  Force  Bill,  providing  for 
federal  supervision  of  elections,  a  reactionary 
measure  repugnant  to  the  basic  principles  of 
American  government,  was  bitterly  opposed  by  large 
numbers  of  influential  Republican  Members  of  the 
House  during  Reed's  first  term  as  Speaker.  It  was 
finally  adopted  in  the  Republican  caucus  by  a  bare 
majority,  but  so  rigid  was  the  system  of  party  dis- 
cipline that  the  lieutenants  of  Reed  who  had  fought 
the  bill  in  the  preliminary  stages,  when  defeated  in 
the  caucus,  and  when  the  stamp  of  party  approval  had 
been  placed  upon  it,  brought  in  the  special  rule  from 
the  Committee  on  Rules  which  gave  it  privilege. 
Speaker  Reed  ruled  with  a  rod  of  iron,  but  the  House 
under  his  leadership  was  magnificent.  His  party 
marched  in  solid  and  unbroken  ranks  steadily  for- 
ward to  the  attainment  of  the  party  goal.  "He  found 
the  House  demoralized  and  the  majority  unable  to 
transact  business  because  of  the  obstructive  tactics 
of  the  minority.  He  took  the  lead  in  formulating  a 
new  set  of  rules  and  enforced  them  with  conspicuous 
ability  and  boldness,  thereby  enabling  the  Fifty-First 
Congress  to  accomplish  the  business  which  the  major- 
ity had  been  commissioned  to  do  by  the  vote  of  the 
people.*  He  did  this  amidst  the  violent  execrations  of 


*Life  of  William  McKinley,  by  Charles  S.  Olcott,  Vol.  I, 
p.  153. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  101 

the  Democrats,  but  they,  upon  securing  control  of  the 
next  House,  promptly  paid  him  the  compliment  of 
adopting  the  'Reed  Rules/  "  "Having  established  the 
right  of  the  majority  to  rule,  this  Congress  gave  strict 
attention  to  the  public  business.  It  passed  the  Mc- 
Kinley  Tariff  Act;  the  Customs  Administrative  Law; 
the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act,  which  attracted  more 
notice  twenty  years  later  than  at  the  time  of  its  pas- 
sage; the  so-called  'Force  Bill,'  which  the ''Senate 
failed  to  pass;  a  pension  law  making  more  liberal: 
provision  than  ever  before  for  the  disabled  soldiers, 
their  widows  and  children ;  a  bankruptcy  act ;  a  meat 
inspection  law,  and  many  other  measures  of  greater 
or  less  importance."*  In  a  word,  the  House  carried 
out  its  conceived  obligations  to  the  country  effectively 
and  efficiently,  and  this,  in  the  eyes  "of  those  who 
supported  the  system,  was  its  justification. 

The  first  decision  of  President  McKinley  and  his 
advisers  in  Congress  with  reference  to  the  construc- 
tive legislative  program  of  the  new  Republican  ad- 
ministration of  1897  gave  tariff  revision  the  right  of 
way,  as  did,  curiously  enough,  the  first  decision  of 
President  Harding  f  and  his  advisers  at  the  Capitol 
and  "out-of-doors."  Mr.  Reed  had  again  been  elected 
Speaker,  the  Fifty-Fifth  Congress  convening  in  extra 
session  on  March  15,  1897.  He  promptly  appointed 
the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  making  Nelson 
Dingley,  Jr.,  of  Maine,  chairman.  A  bill  had  been 
carefully  prepared  during  the  previous  session.  It 
was  introduced  at  once,  and  taken  up  for  considera- 


*Llfe  of  William  McKinley,  by  Charles  S.  Olcott,  Vol.  I, 
p.  239. 

tAt  a  White  House  conference,  March  7,  1921. 


102        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tion  on  March  twenty-second  and  March  thirty-first. 
Under  the  perfectly  operating  system  of  party  gov- 
ernment permitted  by  the  new  rules,  which  had  so 
greatly  increased  the  power  of  the  Speaker  and  of 
his  lieutenants  on  the  floor  and  in  committee  who 
drew  their  vitality  from  him,  the  bill  was  passed  in 
ten  days;  and  Senator  Aldrich,  chairman  of  the  Sen- 
&$&  'Committee  on  Finance,  was  able  to  report  it  on 
fey, fourth  with  amendments,  which  were  added  at 
:  the  insistence  of  a  group  of  Silver  Senators  who  "held 
the  balance  of  power,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  demand, 
as  the  price  of  their  support,  concessions  in  the  direc- 
tion of  higher  duties."*  This  was,  incidentally,  a 
significant  appearance  in  Congress  of  a  determined 
group  united  by  a  common  economic  interest,  and 
influencing  the  character  of  legislation  through  the 
exercise  of  minority  veto  within  the  majority  party. 

The  tariff  act  thus  passed  by  the  House  under 
"gag  rule"  and  organized  force  remained  on  the 
statute  books  for  twelve  years,  during1  which  period 
the  United  States  enjoyed  such  an  era  of  material 
prosperity  as  the  world  had  perhaps  never  witnessed 
before  in  any  country.  The  power  of  party  leader- 
ship under  a  dominating  Speaker  was  justified  by  its 
orderly  administration  of  the  nation's  legislative 
business. 

It  seemed  that  the  system  was  destined  to  endure. 
The  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  was  the 
undoubted  second  officer  of  the  government.  He  tow- 
ered at  times  above  the  President,  with  whom,  in 
power,  he  was  virtually  co-equal.  There  were  not 

*Life  of  William  McKinley,  by  Charles  S.  Olcott,  Vol.  I, 
p.  351. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  103 

lacking  indications  that  the  office  might  become  even 
more  powerful  than  the  executive  office.  Mr.  Reed 
believed  in  the  system  which  had  come  down  to  him 
from  the  British  Commons,  the  Colonial  Assemblies, 
the  Continental  Congress,  and  the  First  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  and  which  he  had  perfected  by  the 
touch  of  his  profound  genius  for  political  leadership 
and  statesmanship.  He  bequeathed  it  as  a  legacy  to 
the  body  which  he  had  served  and  to  the  American 
people  of  whom  he  was  one. 

After  his  first  term  in  the  Speaker's  Chair  he  had 
returned  to  the  Fifty-Second  Congress,  which  was 
Democratic,  to  find  it,  as  he  described  it,  a  mob.  There 
was,  under  Charles  F.  Crisp,  of  Georgia,  a  pronounced 
anti-Republican  reaction  against  the  strong  leadership 
characteristic  of  Mr.  Reed's  party.  The  Fifty-Third 
Congress,  likewise  Democratic,  was  generally  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  financial  theories  of  Grover  Cleve- 
land, but  the  President  was  stronger  than  Congress, 
as  Jackson  had  been  before  him,  and  Wilson  was  to 
be  later  on.  He  convened  it  in  extra  session,  August 
7,  1893,  and  boldly  served  notice  in  his  message  that 
the  time  had  come  for  the  repeal  of  the  provisions 
of  the  act  of  July  14,  1890,  authorizing  the  purchase 
of  silver,  bullion,  and  recommending  that  "other  legis- 
lative action  may  put  beyond  all  doubt  or  mistake  the 
intention  and  ability  of  the  government  to  fulfill  its 
pecuniary  obligations  in  money  universally  recognized 
by  all  civilized  countries."* 

The  party  which  was  about  to  embrace  "Bryan- 
ism"  and  "free  silver"  yielded  to  the  presidential  will, 
and  repealed  the  so-called  Sherman  Silver  Law.  The 


^Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Vol.  IX,  p.  405. 


104       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

reaction  from  the  unchecked  course  of  the  Republican 
politicians  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  period,  whose 
strengthening  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  govern- 
ment at  the  expense  of  the  executive,  in  the  struggle 
over  reconstruction,  had  aroused  the  fears  of  the 
people  and  created  a  sense  of  caution  in  the  House 
itself,  had  brought  to  the  White  House  a  man  who 
was  not  under  the  influence  of  the  traditions  of  the 
House,  but  one  who  had  gained  his  conception  of 
power  in  government  at  the  capital  of  a  sovereign 
state  of  the  Union.  The  leadership  of  Mr.  Cleveland 
was  moral  rather  than  intellectual,  and  was  predi- 
cated upon  a  force  whose  inception  lay  deeply  buried 
at  the  root  of  American  institutions. 

A  still  further  surrender  of  power  was  about  to 
be  made  by  the  House.  The  Senate  added  six  hun- 
dred amendments  to  the  Wilson  Tariff  Bill,  and  the 
House,  in  the  end,  after  protesting  that  it  would  never 
yield,  accepted  them  en  bloc,  an  act  of  stultification 
of  such  enormity  as  to  damage  seriously  the  morale 
of  the  House.  It  was  an  abject  surrender  of  the  noble 
prestige  of  the  House  under  the  Constitution  to  the 
senatorial  oligarchy  headed  by  Arthur  P.  Gorman,  of 
Maryland.  The  Wilson  Bill  became  a  law  without  the 
signature  of  the  President,  the  Senate  showed  its 
strength,  and  the  Democratic  House  which  had  thus 
demeaned  itself  was  replaced  by  another  strong  Re- 
publican House. 

During  the  speakership  of  John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Ken* 
tucky,  in  the  Forty-Eighth,  Forty-Ninth  and  Fiftieth 
Congresses,  and  of  Charles  F.  Crisp,  of  Georgia,  there 
was  a  reaction  from  the  strong  administrations  of  Col- 
fax  and  Elaine.  Mr.  Reed  demonstrated  in  the  Fifty- 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  105 

First  Congress  how  the  powers  of  the  speakership 
could  be  used,  and  Mr.  Crisp,  whose  first  term  of  office 
followed  immediately  after  this  Congress,  was  some- 
what handicapped  by  the  fact  that  when  a  minority 
leader  he  had  personally  assailed  the  extraordinary 
exercise  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  speakership  by  the 
Maine  man.  But  in  the  Fifty-Third  Congress  the 
Democratic  party  was  distracted  by  conditions  threat- 
ening its  existence,  and  Mr.  Crisp,  "too  great  a  man," 
in  the  language  of  a  Republican  contemporary,  Mr. 
John  F.  Lacey,  of  Iowa,  "to  allow  the  reins  to  slip  from 
the  hands  of  his  party  in  the  mere  effort  to  be  con- 
sistent, recognized  the  necessity  of  adopting  methods 
which  would  enable  the  dominant  party  to  enact  the 
measures  for  which  that  party  must  answer  to  this 
country.  He  was  compelled  to  exercise  to  the  utter- 
most the  very  powers  that  he  had  so  severely  criti- 
cized, even  adopting,  in  a  modified  form,  the  same 
rules  that  had  given  a  nickname  to  his  Republican 
predecessor."  Mr.  Reed  described  the  House  in  the 
Fifty-Second  Congress  with  pitiless  irony. 

"The  Democracy  in  the  House,"*  he  wrote,  "with 
a  force  of  three  to  one,  have  not  only  done  nothing 
with  the  tariff,  but  they  have  done  nothing  with  any- 
thing else;  not  only  have  they  done  nothing,  but  at 
the  very  beginning  they  deliberately  established  a 
system  of  rules  which  made  it  a  foregone  conclusion 
that  not  only  had  the  leaders  abdicated,  but  they  were 
determined  that  nobody  else  should  reign.  Given  a 
wonderful  power  by  the  people,  a  power  which  might 
have  enabled  them  to  carry  out  any  plan  for  the 
relief  of  what  they  called  the  down-trodden  people, 


*North  American  Review,  August,  1892,  p.  229. 


106        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

they  deliberately  put  the  veto  into  the  hands  of  one- 
third,  and  in  most  cases  into  the  hands  of  less,  and 
relapsed  into  imbecility." 

For  fifty  years  before  the  Fifty-First  Congress, 
said  Mr.  Reed,  the  Democratic  party  in  the  House 
had  been  building  up  against  the  will  of  the  people 
barriers  so  complicated,  so  diverse,  so  numerous,  and 
so  closely  interwoven  with  the  prejudices  and  customs 
of  many  generations  that  the  "Citadel  of  Do  Nothing 
seemed  unapproachable  from  sea  or  shore."  The  veto 
power  of  the  minority,  enhanced  at  every  opportunity 
by  the  decisions  of  Democratic  Speakers,  was  some- 
thing of  which  the  nation  had  no  conception,  and  such 
as  was  never  tolerated  in  any  other  legislative  body. 
"Unless  the  House  could  be  emancipated  from  the 
bad  traditions  of  fifty  years,"  Mr.  Reed  said,  "there 
was  no  hope  of  legislation.  .  .  .  But  fortunately 
for  the  country  the  House  was  strong  enough  to  meet 
its  duties,  and,  amid  shouts  and  outcries,  which  al- 
ready seem  strange  and  incomprehensible,  broke  down 
the  barriers  of  custom  and  reestablished  the  right  of 
the  majority  to  rule.  This  was  its  greatest  achieve- 
ment, for  which  it  will  have  a  name  in  history." 

On  another  occasion  Mr.  Reed  disclosed  his  great 
vision  of  the  American  speakership.  "The  Speaker  of 
the  House,"  he  said,  "holds  an  office  of  dignity  and 
honor,  of  vast  power  and  influence.  The  extent  of 
that  power  and  influence  can  not  be  described  even  by 
one  who  has  been  honored  by  its  possession.*  All 
this  dignity,  honor,  power  and  influence  were  created 
not  to  adorn  or  glorify  any  individual,  but  to  uphold, 

*In  the  House,  March  3, 1893. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  107 

support,  and  maintain  the  well-being  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States. 

"That  that  officer  should  be  respected  and  esteemed 
concerns  every  Member  of  this  House  not  only  as  a 
member,  but  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

"No  factional  or  party  malice  ought  ever  to  strive 
to  diminish  his  standing  or  lessen  his  esteem  in  the 
eyes  of  Members  or  of  the  world.  No  disappoint- 
ments or  defeats  ought  ever  to  be  permitted  to  show 
themselves  to  the  injury  of  that  high  place.  Whoever 
at  any  time,  whether  for  purposes  of  censure  or  re- 
buke or  from  any  other  motive,  attempts  to  lower  the 
prestige  of  that  office,  by  just  so  much  lowers  the 
prestige  of  the  House  itself,  whose  servant  and  expo- 
nent the  Speaker  is.  No  attack,  whether  open  or 
covert,  can  be  made  upon  that  great  office  without 
leaving  to  the  future  a  legacy  of  disorder  and  bad 
government. 

"This  is  not  because  the  Speaker  is  himself  a  sa- 
cred creation.  It  isjbecause  he  is  the  embodiment  of 
the  House,  its  power  and  dignity. 

"If  efforts  of  that  kind  have  been  made  in  the  past, 
if  at  any  time,  in  the  heat  of  passion  or  in  the  flush 
of  resentment  over  unexpected  defeat  and  overthrow, 
action  has  been  taken  which  has  been  thus  inimicable 
to  the  public  good,  and  the  public  order,  let  us  leave 
to  those  who  so  acted  the  honor  or  the  shame,  and 
in  no  way  give  to  their  example  the  flattery  of  an 
imitation. 

"While,  therefore,  my  associates  and  I  have  not 
forgotten  the  past,  I  am  sure  that  I  speak  the  senti- 
ment of  them  all  when  I  say  that  the  Republican 
party,  without  regard  to  what  any  other  party  may 


108       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

do,  or  what  any  other  party  has  done,  will  buttress, 
by  the  respectful  behavior  of  each  and  every  one  of 
its  members,  this  high  office."* 

Absolutism,  of  course,  did  not  go  unchallenged, 
even  in  the  days  which  marked  the  apogee  of  the 
power  of  the  speakership.  There  were  frequent  re- 
volts against  it.  Men  of  great  intellectual  integrity 
and  independence  refused  from  time  to  time  to  bend 
their  heads  to  the  yoke  of  party  despotism  and  to  sac- 
rifice conscience  to  expediency,  and  that  expediency 
determined  by  the  opinions  of  a  few  other  men. 
There  was  swift  punishment  for  the  disobedient,  and 
preferment  went  to  those  whose  scruples  were  not 
troublesome.  Naturally  there  was,  at  least  mentally 
on  the  part  of  the  leaders,  a  segregation  of  the  goats 
from  the  sheep;  and  in  every  Congress  there  were  a 
few  untamed  ones  outside  the  corral,  for  years  a 
source  of  annoyance,  but  never  of  danger. 

Occasionally  the  power  of  the  Speaker  was  ques- 
tioned. On  April  7,  1897,  near  the  beginning  of  Mr. 
Reed's  last  Congress,  the  Fifty-Fifth,  Jerry  Simpson, 
of  Kansas,  raised  the  question  that  there  had  been 
delay  in  the  appointment  of  committees,  and  the 
Speaker  in  the  course  of  an  explanation,  further  de- 
fined the  powers  and  purposes  of  his  office.  Mr.  Reed 
concluded  by  reminding  the  House  that  if  it  thought 
that  any  occupant  of  the  Chair  was  not  carrying  out 
its  wishes,  the  remedy  was  in  its  hands  at  any  time. 

By  this  he  meant  that  the  Speaker  could  be 
changed  by  the  House  at  its  pleasure,  a  fact  expressly 
laid  down  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  never  seriously  dis- 


* Congressional  Record,  Fifty-Second  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  2614. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DESPOTISM  109 

puted,  although  there  had  never  been,  and  never  has 
been,  an  exercise  of  the  authority.  Thus  the  House 
was  always  conscious  of  the  difference  between  the 
office  and  the  man,  and  realized  that  while  it  clothed 
the  speakership  with  a  power  commensurate  with  the 
prestige  of  the  House  the  individual  holding  the  place 
was  theoretically  the  creature  of  the  House.  But 
theory  and  practise  are  not  always  a  well-mated 
couple. 

Whenever  the  power  of  the  Speaker  was  ques- 
tioned it  was  always  sustained.  The  right  of  the 
Chair  to  delay  making  committee  assignments  for  long 
periods  was  recognized,  Mr.  Keed,  for  example,  re- 
fraining from  appointing  the  committees  in  the  Fifty- 
Fifth  Congress  for  one  hundred  thirty-one  days.  In 
the  Forty-Second  Congress  two  hundred  seventy-five 
days  elapsed  from  the  beginning  of  the  session  to 
the  appointment  of  the  committees  by  Speaker  Elaine, 
a  delay  which  also  raised  an  issue  upon  which  the 
Speaker  was  sustained  by  the  House.  It  was  the 
earlier  practise  of  the  House  for  the  Speaker  to  fill 
vacancies  on  committees  only  by  the  special  direction 
of  the  House;  but  in  1858  Mr.  Speaker  Orr  filled  sev- 
eral vacancies  on  standing  committees  without  author- 
ization from  the  House  and  in  1900,  by  which  time 
the  powers  of  the  Speaker  had  become  more  consoli- 
dated, Mr.  Speaker  Henderson  actually  contemplated 
the  filling  of  a  vacancy  on  the  Ways  and  Means  Com- 
mittee during  the  recess  between  the  first  and  sec- 
ond sessions  of  the  Fifty-Sixth  Congress. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS 

DURING  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Henderson  *  the 
control  of  the  House  of  Representatives  passed  for 
the  first  time  in  the  nation's  history  into  the  hands  of 
a  strong  and  ambitious  group  of  western  men,  and 
the  West  came  into  a  new  position  of  power  in  both 
bodies  of  Congress,  such  as  it  was  not  again  to  occupy 
for  more  than  twenty  years. 

Mr.  Henderson  was  the  first  Speaker  from  a  state 
beyond  the  Mississippi  River,  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Mr.  Champ  Clark,  of  Missouri,  who  historically 
belongs  more  to  the  South  than  to  the  West,  he  is  the 
only  one.  A  new  element  of  national  strength  was 
making  itself  felt,  and  the  voluntary  passing  of  Reed 
from  the  stage  of  public  life  was  symbolical  of  the 
passing  of  New  England,  which  was  to  be  deferred 
a  few  years,  but  which  was  none  the  less  inevitable. 
The  sway  of  the  East,  fortified  as  it  was  by  the  tre- 
mendous political  and  economic  might  of  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania,  was  coming  to  an  end,  slowly  but 
surely. 

Under  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Crisp  there  had  been 
a  modification  of  the  procedure  under  the  rules,  and 
in  the  Democratic  party  Senator  Gorman,  of  Mary- 
land, had  been  the  real  power  in  Congress,  and  the 


*Fifty-Sixth  and  Fifty-Seventh  Congresses,  December  4, 
1899,  to  March  3,  1903. 

110 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  111 

Senate  became  the  dominating  branch.  When  Mr. 
Henderson  was  Speaker,  William  B.  Allison,  of  Iowa, 
who  came  from  the  same  town,  Dubuque,  was  chair- 
man of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Appropriations,  in 
many  respects  the  most  important  place  in  the  Sen- 
ate, and  was  also  with  Aldrich  on  the  Finance  Com- 
mittee. Henderson  enjoyed  confidential  relations  with 
Senator  Allison,  and  Iowa,  with  five  or  six  im- 
portant chairmanships  in  the  House,  was  perhaps  the 
strongest  single  state  in  Congress.  Mr.  Henderson, 
the  last  of  the  Civil  War  Speakers,  had  been  chair- 
man of  the  Republican  Committee,  appointed  by  the 
party  caucus,  to  frame  a  sound  money  bill,  and  it 
was  while  this  committee  was  meeting  at  Atlantic 
City  that  Mr.  Reed  announced  he  would  not  again 
enter  Congress,  and  the  lowan's  friends  put  him  in 
the  race  for  the  speakership.  Early  in  the  campaign 
it  was  important  to  ascertain  whether  the  President 
would  use  his  influence,  and  Mr.  Henderson  going 
to  the  White  House  received  the  assurances  of  Mr. 
McKinley  that  he  would  keep  his  "hands  off."  As 
Speaker  Mr.  Henderson  was  surrounded  by  such  men 
as  Sereno  E.  Payne,  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  John  Dalzell, 
and  General  Grosvenor,  of  Ohio,  all  of  whom  were 
able  and  experienced  men  trained  in  the  school  of 
partisan  politics,  but  the  system  which  centered  about 
the  speakership  made  no  advance  in  this  period,  and 
the  Senate  steadily  tended  to  assume  a  place  of  in- 
creasing strength  and  dignity,  such  as  it  had  enjoyed 
in  the  middle  period  of  its  history. 

Nearly  every  state  was  represented  in  the  Senate 
at  that  time  by  a  man  of  exceptional  ability,  and 
generally  by  two  of  them  of  almost  equal  standing. 


Nelson  W.  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island,  the  uncrowned 
Republican  leader,  raised  party  leadership  in  the  Sen- 
ate to  a  position  which  perhaps  it  had  never  attained 
before,  and  which  certainly  it  was  not  to  attain  again 
except  during  the  brief  period  of  the  leadership  of 
Mr.  Lodge  which  was  concerned  with  the  partisan 
contest  over  the  Versailles  Treaty. 

But  a  new  period  of  splendor  in  the  history  of  the 
House  began  with  the  opening  of  the  Fifty-Eighth 
Congress.  Mr.  Cannon,  who  had  learned  his  lessons 
in  leadership  and  party  discipline  under  Reed,  came 
to  the  speakership  after  the  sensational  and  myster- 
ious retirement  of  Mr.  Henderson,  strong  with  the 
prestige  which  he  had  gained  as  the  chairman  of  the 
great  and  puissant  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and 
as  a  member  of  Rules.  He  was  sustained  by  a  group 
of  forceful  men. 

Under  him  the  powers  conferred  upon  leader- 
ship by  the  rules  were  augmented  by  a  carefully  per- 
fected organization,  at  the  head  of  which  stood  the 
Speaker  himself.  It  became  by  successive  steps  the 
most  ruthless  political  oligarchy  America  had  ever 
seen, — and  the  ablest. 

The  towering  figures  in  the  Senate,  Aldrich,  Platt, 
Hale,  Quay  and  Spooner,  found  it  necessary  to  con- 
sult with  the  Speaker  of  the  House  from  time  to  time 
when  matters  of  larger  importance  and  significance 
arose  affecting  the  general  legislative  program  and 
party  politics,  and  they  would  go  for  conference  to 
that  anteroom  set  apart  for  the*  Speaker  which  had 
become  the  center  of  the  vital  energies  of  Congress. 
Not  so  intellectual  a  man  as  Reed,  less  bold,  and 
lacking  something  of  the  other's  cunning,  Cannon 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  113 

had  qualities  of  personality  and  temperament  which 
made  him  in  some  respects  an  abler  Speaker  than 
Reed  had  been.  He  was  loved  even  by  his  enemies, 
whereas  the  glacial  Maine  giant  was  sometimes  cor- 
dially disliked  by  those  who  most  admired  him.  There 
was  a  homely  simplicity  about  him,  a  lovable  nobility  of 
spirit,  which  bound  to  him  in  affection  those  whom 
he  enthralled.  This  fact  was  to  have  important  bear- 
ing upon  subsequent  political  events. 

Speaker  Cannon  established  a  contact  with  the 
White  House  which  enhanced  the  prestige  of  the 
House.  He  had  conferences  two  or  three  times  a 
week  with  President  Roosevelt,  and  was  recognized 
by  the  President  as  the  chief  spokesman  of  the  Re- 
publican party  at  the  Capitol. 

Republican  Senators  quickly  appreciated  this,  and 
in  consequence  there  was  at  first  close  party  cooper- 
ation in  this  administration,  as  between  the  Speaker 
and  the  President,  and  as  between  the  Speaker  and 
the  leaders  of  his  party  at  the  Senate.  For  a  consid- 
erable period  the  administration  functioned  with  re- 
markable harmony  and  efficiency,  although  there  were 
exceptions  to  this  rule. 

The  country  enjoyed  those  benefits  which  flow 
from  a  government  which  is  in  strong  firm  hands, 
and  which  is  guided  by  minds  actuated  by  common 
aspirations  and  purposes.  Not  even  under  Reed  had 
the  House  conducted  its  business  with  more  precision. 

Mr.  Cannon  was  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  popular  branch  of  the  legislative 
assembly  of  the  American  people.  The  House  was 
exactly  attuned  to  his  homely  and  rugged  nature. 
He  was  himself  close  to  the  soil  and  near  to  the 


hearts  of  plain  folks.  There  was  about  him  no  sug- 
gestion of  artificiality,  and  rank,  position  and  title 
had  no  glamour  for  him,  save  as  they  concerned  the 
dignity  of  the  office  which  he  held.  To  his  mind  the 
House  was  splendid  and  great,  and  he  wanted  to  keep 
it  so.  He  belonged  not  only  to  the  era  in  which  he 
lived  but  to  that  which  had  preceded,  but  if  he  was 
old-fashioned  in  some  of  his  habits  of  thought,  there 
was  no  man  in  the  House  with  a  surer  insight  into 
the  future.  It  was  one  of  the  anomalies  of  the  politi- 
cal psychology  of  his  time  that  the  man  in  whom 
the  public  mind  was  to  personify  the  institution  of 
political  autocracy  was  himself  one  of  the  plain  peo- 
ple and  filled  with  a  spirit  of  simple  democracy.  He 
was  proud  of  the  House  and  of  the  power  of  the 
House,  and  the  House  was  proud  of  him  and  regarded 
him  with  an  affection  so  boundless,  an  appreciation 
of  his  honesty  and  personal  virtues  so  universal,  that 
when  the  revolt  against  his  domination  was  ripening 
it  was  made  a  condition  of  the  movement  against  him 
that  it  should  be  impersonal.  It  was  perhaps  largely 
for  this  reason  that  when  the  House  undertook  toward 
the  end  of  Mr.  Cannon's  brilliant  regime  to  find  a 
remedy  for  the  evils  of  which  wide-spread  complaint 
was  made  in  and  out  of  Congress,  it  decided  upon  the 
destruction  of  the  system  rather  than  upon  less  dras- 
tic reform. 

In  any  industrial  concern  whose  officials  had 
formed  a  clique  to  run  its  business  affairs  by  high- 
handed methods  calculated  to  exalt  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  the  industry,  the  remedy  no  doubt  would 
have  been  found  in  another  course  of  action.  The 
board  of  directors  probably  would  have  made  a  clean 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  115 

sweep  of  the  offending  officers,  and  would  have  re- 
placed them  with  others  more  to  their  liking,  but  they 
would  hardly  have  gone  to  the  extreme  of  retaining  the 
officers  in  their  places,  and  reorganizing  the  business 
along  such  lines  as  seriously  to  interfere  with  its  in- 
telligent conduct. 

There  was,  too,  another  reason  for  the  course  pur- 
sued by  the  House  in  the  movement  which  destroyed 
the  speakership.  By  the  time  the  reforms  of  1909  and 
1910  were  actually  undertaken,  stubborn  resistance  to 
the  spread  of  progressive  ideas  in  Congress  and  in  the 
country  had  bred  among  men  of  liberal  tendencies  a 
spirit  bordering  on  fanaticism.  The  speakership  was 
obliterated  with  the  zeal  with  which  men  might  tear 
down  a  monarchy  to  found  a  republic.  These  reform- 
ers did  not  want  a  new  and  better  monarchy  in  the 
House — they  wanted  something  wholly  different  from 
the  existing  regime.  The  Republicans  of  the  House  in 
the  end  went  to  a  very  great  length  in  responding  to  a 
public  opinion,  the  extent  of  which  has  never  been 
accurately  estimated  or  determined,  favorable  to  a  re- 
form to  which  the  Democratic  party  had  been  com- 
mitted by  their  national  platform  of  1908.  The  Repub- 
licans acted  with  extraordinary  inconsistency,  and 
other  acts  followed  in  consequence  of  the  first,  acts  so 
at  variance  with  and  repugnant  to  party  traditions  and 
principles  as  to  prove  demoralizing  in  the  sequel. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Fifty-Eighth  Congress 
there  was  general  satisfaction  with  the  purposes  and 
plans  as  well  as  with  the  methods  of  the  party  in 
control  of  the  government  in  all  its  branches.  No 
small  part  of  the  Speaker's  popularity  in  the  House 
was  due  to  the  vigor  and  aggressiveness  with  which 


116        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

he  challenged  the  rising  power  of  the  Senate.  He 
stimulated  the  pride  and  elevated  the  dignity  of  the 
House. 

At  this  time  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Republi- 
can organization  in  the  House  had  the  support  and 
confidence  of  President  Roosevelt,  who  was  finding 
in  the  popular  legislative  branch  a  sentiment  far  more 
in  accord  with  his  desires  and  ambitions  than  he  could 
find  in  the  cynical  and  reactionary  Senate.  In  1906 
Mr.  Roosevelt  wrote  from  Oyster  Bay  to  the  Repub- 
lican "whip"*  of  the  House  a  letter  in  which  the  fol- 
lowing paragraphs  occurred: 

"I  feel  that  all  good  citizens  who  have  the  welfare 
of  America  at  heart  should  appreciate  the  immense 
amount  that  has  been  accomplished  by  the  present 
Congress  organized  as  it  is,  and  the  urgent  need  of 
keeping  this  organization  in  power.^  With  Mr.  Can- 
non as  Speaker,  the  House  has  accomplished  a  literally 
phenomenal  amount  of  good  work.  It  has  shown  a 
courage,  good  sense,  and  patriotism  such  that  it 
would  be  a  real  and  serious  misfortune  for  the  country 
to  fail  to  recognize.  To  change  the  leadership  and 
organization  of  the  House  at  this  time  means  to  bring 
confusion  upon  those  who  have  been  successfully  en- 
gaged in  the  steady  working  out  of  a  great  and  com- 
prehensive scheme  for  the  betterment  of  our  social, 
industrial,  and  civic  conditions.  Such  a  change  would 
substitute  a  purposeless  confusion,  a  violent  and 
hurtful  oscillation  between  the  positions  of  the  ex- 
treme radical  and  the  extreme  reactionary,  for  the 


*Mr.  James  E.  Watson,  of  Indiana. 

^Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p,  3303. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  117 

present  orderly  progress  along  the  lines  of  a  care- 
fully thought-out  policy. 

"The  interests  of  this  nation  are  as  varied  as  they 
are  vast.  Congress  must  take  account,  not  of  one 
national  need,  but  of  many  and  widely  different  na- 
tional needs ;  and  I  speak  with  historic  accuracy  when 
I  say  that  not  in  our  time  has  any  other  Congress 
done  so  well  in  so  many  different  fields  of  endeavor 
as  the  present  Congress  has  done.  No  Congress  can 
do  everything.  Still  less  can  it,  in  one  session,  meet 
every  need." 

While  allowance  naturally  will  be  made  for  the 
inevitable  political  bias  of  such  a  letter  written  in  a 
campaign  year,  and  upon  its  face  intended  for  party 
purposes,  the  inherent  truth  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  praise 
of  Congress  at  this  time  can  not  be  doubted;  and  it 
was  truth,  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  also  true  that 
among  those  in  the  House  who  were  beginning  to  feel 
that  the  rules  should  be  liberalized  were  a  number  of 
Roosevelt  Republicans,  who  had  become  supporters  of 
those  policies  of  reform  in  public  life  and  service 
which  were  regarded  as  radical. 

The  movement  inaugurated  in  Congress  about  this 
time,  when  there  sat  in  the  House  an  unusually  large 
number  of  men  of  brains  and  sentiment  who  had  been 
idealists  in  political  reformation  long  before  Mr. 
Roosevelt  gave  to  the  tendency  of  the  time  a  keen 
sense  of  direction,  had  a  considerable  course  yet  to 
run.  The  overthrow  of  the  speakership  was  to  be 
accomplished  not  in  Roosevelt's  White  House  days, 
but  as  a  part  of  the  misfortunes  which  attended  the 
administration  of  President  Taft.  The  men  who 
brought  it  about  were  not  followers  of  Roosevelt,  ex- 


118        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

cept  in  the  sense  that  in  him  they  saw  a  leader  who 
could  bring  to  their  cause  a  strength  and  a  force  and 
a  talent  for  publicity  which  they  very  much  required. 
They  were  themselves  leaders  and  pioneers,  and 
Roosevelt  in  the  end  reaped  where  they  had  sown. 

During  the  various  sessions  of  the  Cannon  Con- 
gresses, but  more  especially  toward  the  end,  there 
were  many  quiet  conferences  among  certain  groups 
of  Members  of  the  House  who  began  to  discover  that 
they  had  ideals  and  purposes  in  common,  and  that, 
in  addition,  they  were  bound  together  by  the  consid- 
eration that  they  had  been  victims,  separately,  of  the 
rigid  system  of  party  discipline  which  they  regarded 
as  a  hindrance  to  the  exercise  of  their  natural  abili- 
ties, and  a  restriction  upon  their  freedom  of  action 
in  bringing  forward  for  consideration  measures  in 
which  they  were  interested  both  as  statesmen  and  as 
politicians. 

One  great  difficulty  which  impeded  the  advance- 
ment in  the  House  of  the  Republican  novice  with  new 
ideas  and  progressive  habits  of  thought  was  his  lack 
of  familiarity  with  the  rules  and  with  the  intricacies 
of  parliamentary  procedure  under  the  complex  system 
prevailing,  a  system  predicated  upon  the  Jefferson 
Manual,  a  great  mass  of  rules  and  special  rules,  and 
countless  precedents  established  by  the  practises  of  pre- 
vious Congresses  and  the  decisions  of  previous  Speak- 
ers for  more  than  a  hundred  twenty  years.  These 
rules  and  precedents  are  contained  in  eight  immense 
quarto  volumes  of  more  than  one  thousand  pages  each. 
Familiarity  with  these  rules  was  an  asset  of  inestim- 
able value  to  the  Members  of  the  inner  organization, 
while  ignorance  of  them  prevented  a  great  many  men 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  119 

from  obtaining  in  the  fierce  parliamentary  conflicts  the 
favorable  consideration  for  their  measures  which  more 
knowledge  and  dexterity  might  have  enabled  them 
to  gaii*.  It  was  only  natural  that  those  who  suffered 
should  be  drawn  together  by  the  instinct  which 
promptd  misery  to  seek  company. 

"At  the  very  beginning  of  these  conferences,"  ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  one  of  the  members  of 
this  insurgent  group,*  "it  was  unanimously  agreed  that 
no  fight  was  to  be  made  on  the  Speaker."  By  this 

I  was  meant  that  the  planned  attack  was  to  be  directed 
against  the  system  and  not  against  individuals. 

As  a  result  of  this  coming  together  of  the  pro- 
gressives of  the  Republican  side,  then  numbering  not 
more  than  thirty,  the  reform  generally  spoken  of  as 
the  adoption  of  "Calendar  Wednesday"  was  brought 
about,  and  in  addition,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sixty- 
First  Congress  another  liberalizing  rule  was  adopted 
providing  that  after  the  previous  question  on  a  bill 
had  been  ordered  a  Member  in  opposition  to  it  should 
be  recognized  to  move  that  the  bill  be  recommitted. 
The  rule  was  employed  for  the  first  time  when  the 
Payne  Tariff  Bill  was  put  upon  its  passage. 

"Calendar  Wednesday,"  one  of  the  most  useful  re- 
forms the  House  has  instituted  in  recent  years,  was 
adopted  on  March  1,  1909,  in  the  Sixtieth  Congress. 
Members  began  to  find,  as  the  business  of  the  House 
increased  year  after  year,  that  even  after  a  commit- 
tee had  spent  months  in  consideration  of  a  bill,  t  and 
had  reported  the  bill  with  a,  favorable  recommenda- 
tion, so  many  others  pressed  for  action  that  it  could 


*Mr.  Townsend,  of  Michigan;  Congressional  Record,  Sixty- 
First  Congress,  second  session,  p.  3413. 


120        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

not  be  brought  to  a  vote.  The  difficulty  was  that  the 
powerful  committees  generally  monopolized  the  time 
of  the  House,  and  those  of  less  importance  were  side- 
tracked. 

This  situation  was  largely  responsible  for  the 
increase  of  insurgency  in  the  House  and  an  effort 
was  made  to  remedy  the  conditions  complained  of. 
From  the  beginning  there  had  been  a  call  of  com- 
mittees, but  the  call  was  neglected  because  of  the 
pressure  of  business.  Out  of  the  agitation  which 
arose,  and  which  was  a  part  of  the  revolt  against 
the  organization  of  which  Mr.  Cannon  was  the  head, 
grew  the  adoption,  after  a  long  fight,  of  a  rule  estab- 
lishing "Calendar  Wednesday."  It  was  a  drastic  rule 
in  this  respect,  that  it  could  only  be  dispensed  with 
by  a  two-thirds  vote,  and  on  this  account  it  was  some- 
times referred  to  sarcastically  as  "Sacred  Wednes- 
day." This  rule  setting  aside  a  day  each  week  when 
the  calendar  must  be  called,  gave  to  a  committee  the 
opportunity  to  bring  before  the  House  for  considera- 
tion a  bill  which  might  be  objectionable  to  the  or- 
ganization, and  in  this  way  the  insurgents  first  suc- 
ceeded in  seriously  curtailing  the  power  of  the 
Speaker.  Up  to  this  time  it  was  possible  for  the 
Speaker  to  determine,  except  as  to  privileged  matters, 
the  bills  that  should  be  considered.  On  suspension  day 
nobody  could  bring  up  a  matter  for  consideration  with- 
out first  securing  the  consent  of  recognition  from  the 
Speaker.  The  Roosevelt  Republicans  knew  that  some- 
thing was  wrong,  but  compared  to  the  veteran  leaders 
of  the  House  most  of  them  were  tyros,  and  at  first  they 
did  not  know  how  to  accomplish  what  they  so  ardently 
desired. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  121 

Ignorance  of  the  rules  of  the  House  was  partly 
responsible  for  the  criticism  launched  against  them. 
Few  Members  of  the  House  knew  their  history,  or 
understood  the  purposes  for  which  they  had  been 
created  and  the  exigencies  which  had  brought  them 
forth.  Obviously  no  rules  could  have  been  devised 
which  would  have  enabled  the  House  to  consider  and 
act  upon  all  the  bills  and  resolutions  which  all  the 
Members  desired  to  have  considered  and  acted  upon. 
Preference  naturally  had  to  be  given  to  those  meas- 
ures which  were  considered  as  being  of  greatest  im- 
portance to  the  country,  and  naturally  also  somebody 
had  to  determine  the  question  of  importance.  That 
could  not  be  left  to  the  individual  Member,  if  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  each  would  be  inclined  to  re- 
gard his  own  particular  bill  as  of  more  value  to  the 
country  than  any  other.  It  was  inevitable  that  the 
selection  of  the  bills  should  devolve  upon  the  leader- 
ship, which  is  but  another  way  of  stating  that  the 
group  in  the  House  which  succeeded  in  making  this 
choice  would  constitute  the  leadership,  since  the  ob- 
ject of  leadership  is  accomplishment.  This  choice 
was  not  always  made  in  the  House,  for  it  very  often 
happens  that  the  legislative  program  of  an  adminis- 
tration is  determined  by  House,  Senate,  and  execu- 
tive leaders  acting  in  concert,  and  indeed  such  a  de- 
termination of  policy  is  essential  to  orderly  party 
government. 

The  character  of  the  legislation  passed  by  Con- 
gress at  this  time,  at  the  very  moment  when  revolt 
against  the  system  of  efficiency  was  brewing,  verifies 
the  truth  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  analysis  of  the  value  of 
the  organization  of  his  party  in  the  House.  Under 


122         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  system  so  bitterly  condemned,  the  Republican  or- 
ganization enacted  the  pure  food  law,  provided  for 
government  control  of  railroad  rates,  stopped  rebat- 
ing, and  put  upon  the  books  a  great  many  statutes 
of  distinct  value  and  progressive  type.  Nobody 
realized  better  than  Mr.  Roosevelt,  one  of  the  most 
thoroughly  practical  of  American  Presidents,  the  value 
of  concerted  action  through  organizations 

With  scarcely  a  point  of  resemblance  between 
them,  totally  unlike  in  temperament  and  in  their  men- 
tal processes,  Roosevelt  and  Cannon  nevertheless  were 
alike  in  this,  that  they  were  both  party  men.  Each 
believed — at  that  time — in  the  American  system  of 
two-party  government.  Each  respected  the  judgment 
of  the  other,  and  the  President  relied  upon  the  sagac- 
ity and  experience  of  the  head  of  his  party  in  Con- 
gress. Through  the  Speaker  the  President  kept  in 
close  touch  with  the  state  of  mind  in  the  House,  and 
hence  it  was  possible  for  policies  to  be  determined 
upon  in  consequence  of  perfect  understandings 
reached  between  White  House  and  Capitol  in  advance 
of  legislative  action. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  realized  that  when  he  discussed  with 
Mr.  Cannon  the  legislative  problems  engaging  the  at- 
tention of  the  House  the  Speaker  was  competent  to 
reply  with  finality,  not  only  because  he  was  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  with  reasonable  accuracy  what  the  situ- 
ation at  the  south  end  of  the  Capitol  might  be  from 
day  to  day,  but  because  by  reason  of  the  vast  power 
which  reposed  in  him  he  was  able  to  act  according 
as  he  might  say  to  the  President  "yes"  or  "no." 

If  the  Speaker  informed  the  President,  with  re- 
spect to  any  measure,  that  it  could  pass,  it  meant  that 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  123 

the  President  could  depend  upon  that  information,  and 
shape  his  national  policies  in  accordance.  It  did  not 
mean  that,  in  the  final  stages  of  legislative  action, 
when  the  administration  had  been  committed  to  a  cer- 
tain definite  policy,  it  would  be  discovered,  when  too 
late,  that  a  sufficient  vote  could  not  be  commanded. 

The  Speaker  knew  at  all  times,  through  his  lieu- 
tenants who  canvassed  the  House  constantly,  keeping 
in  touch  with  every  movement  going  on,   precisely 
where  every  Member  stood,  exactly  how  he  felt,  and 
what  he  thought.     It  was  by  no  means  always  the 
object  of  the  Speaker  and  his  immediate  assistants  of 
the  inner  organization  to  see  that  the  wishes  of  the 
majority  of  the  House  were  carried  out;  and  although 
in  the  long  run  a  majority  of  the  House  usually  had 
>,  its  way,  the  oligarchy  frequently  utilized  its  knowledge 
j  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the  House  to  defeat  its  aspira- 
tions and  thwart  its  will.    It  was  just  here  that  the 
'  system  failed. 

It  was  easy  for  the  organization  to  justify  itself. 
It  did  so  upon  the  theory  that  a  few  men  charged  with 
responsibility  and  answerable  to  the  party  and  to  the 
country  knew  what  was  best  for  the  House  better  than 
the  House  did  itself.  There  was  a  measure  of  truth 
in  this  conception  of  the  function  of  the  inner  organiza- 
tion. The  House  of  Representatives  was  gradually 
becoming  what  Reed  had  once  called  it,  a  mob.  The 
steady  tendency  in  the  House  was  to  increase  its  mem- 
bership as  each  new  census  revealed  a  growth  in  popu- 
lation. Intelligent  opinion  in  the  House  resisted  this 
increase  in  the  numerical  size  of  the  body,  but  without 
avail.  The  larger  the  size  of  the  House  the  greater 
the  necessity  for  a  strong  and  small  body  of  resourceful 


124         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

leaders  to  act  as  its  board  of  directors,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  this  need  the  oligarchy  was  able  to  tighten 
its  hold  upon  the  heterogeneous  mass  over  which  it 
held  sway,  a  mass  in  the  last  analysis  bound  together 
almost  entirely  by  the  cohesive  force  of  party,  and 
composed  of  individuals  of  different  types  of  mind,  of 
unlike  habits  of  thought,  of  dissimilar  social  instincts, 
and  representing  constituencies  whose  special  interests 
touched  at  few  points  and  conflicted  at  many.  The 
party  appeal,  that  is  to  say  the  recognition  of  the  de- 
sirability of  organized  action,  was  the  most  powerful 
psychological  factor  in  the  House,  and  the  leadership 
not  only  made  use  of  this,  but  over-capitalized  it,  until 
in  the  end  the  man  of  independent  spirit  and  liberalized 
mind  who  sought  to  strike  out  for  himself  along  new 
pathways  of  action,  and  to  explore  the  uncharted  seas 
of  experimental  legislation,  was  terrorized  by  having 
brought  against  him  the  allegation  of  party  disloyalty. 
The  mass  tendency  in  the  House  was  to  preserve  in- 
stinctively the  party  system  upon  which  its  great  power 
as  the  champion  of  free  institutions  against  the  autoc- 
racy of  the  Executive  was  dependent;  the  individual 
instinct  was  to  destroy  it,  as  something  hampering  to 
free  will. 

There  were  many  times  when  the  House  was  res- 
tive, when  the  rigidity  of  the  system  of  highly  central- 
ized control  proved  irksome  and  humiliating.  It  might 
have  obviated  many  of  the  difficulties  against  which  it 
struggled  by  the  exercise  of  enough  self-denial  to  im- 
pose a  reasonable  limitation  upon  the  numbers  of  its 
membership,  and  thus  to  prevent  the  popular  assembly 
of  the  people  from  becoming  unwieldy.  Even  in  Can- 
non's time  the  House  was  too  large  to  function  effec- 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  125 

tively  without  rules  of  procedure  calculated  to  destroy 
all  that  makes  individualism  and  democracy  so  greatly 
to  be  desired.  The  expansion  of  the  House  had  been 
remarkable,  increasing  from  a  membership  of  65  in 
the  First  Congress,  to  106  under  the  census  of  1790,  to 
186  under  the  census  of  1810,  and  242  under  the  census 
of  1830,  when  the  apportionment  was  on  a  basis  of  one 
Representative  to  each  47,700  of  population.  The  basis 
of  apportionment  was  increased  under  the  next  census 
to  70,680,  but  the  country  was  growing  up  to  manhood 
so  vigorously  that  even  so  the  next  House  had  a  mem- 
bership of  232;  and  this  is  the  sole  instance  of  a  de- 
crease in  the  size  of  the  House  in  all  its  history.  The 
growth  was  not  great  for  the  next  few  years,  the 
membership  increasing  only  to  243  under  the  census 
of  1860,  but  during  the  next  ten-year  period  it  gained 
fifty  members,  and  the  membership  in  the  Fifty-Ninth 
Congress  was  385,*  while  that  of  the  Senate  was  90. 
In  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  the  membership  of  the 
House  had  grown  to  435,f  while  only  six  additional 
Senators  had  been  added  to  the  other  body. 

The  problems  of  leadership  under  Cannon  were 
thus  very  serious  ones,  both  from  the  point  of  view  of 
responsibility  to  the  country,  and  with  respect  to  the 
maintenance  of  party  solidarity.  This  stability  could 
be  preserved  only  through  discipline.  This  was  one 
of  the  principal  objects  of  the  leadership  exercised  by 
Mr.  Cannon,  and  he  succeeded  for  a  long  period  in 
maintaining  it.  His  organization  functioned  perfectly 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  strict  party  man. 

If  the  Speaker,  in  conference  with  the  President, 


*One  vacancy. 

fNot  including  delegates. 


126         THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

informed  him  that  not  enough  votes  could  be  counted 
for  any  particular  bill  which  the  Executive  desired  as 
an  administration  measure,  it  became  the  business  of 
the  leaders  in  the  House  to  see  to  it  that  when  the 
time  came,  those  votes  were  safe,  provided,  always, 
that  the  views  of  these  leaders  coincided  with  those  of 
the  President.  This  was  not  always  the  case ;  and  when 
Speaker  Cannon  told  the  President  bluntly  that  there 
would  not  be  enough  votes,  that  settled  the  matter. 
When  the  President  and  the  Speaker  were  in  accord 
it  became  the  duty  of  the  latter  to  take  such  steps  as 
might  be  necessary  to  bring  the  House  into  line,  and 
the  party  whip  would  be  applied  to  the  backs  of  the 
stubborn,  and  the  patronage  club  would  be  brought 
into  play.  Party  loyalty  became  the  supreme  require- 
ment. The  caucus  and  the  rules  were  the  instruments 
of  party  government. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE 

PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT,  being  a  practical  man,  em- 
ployed those  instrumentalities  of  government  which 
were  at  his  hand.  He  did  not  try  to  reform  the  House ; 
he  used  it.  He  did  not  plague  it  or  antagonize  it  with 
fantastic  innovations,  but  accepted  it  as  it  was.  When 
it  was  too  strong  for  him,  as  sometimes  proved  to  be 
the  case,  he  met  the  situation  as  a  philosopher. 

In  consequence  of  the  cooperation  with  the  House 
which  he  established  through  the  Speaker,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt was  able  to  win  the  most  spectacular  fight  of  his 
administration,  and  to  write  into  the  statutes  the  meas- 
ure incomparably  his  most  constructive  accomplish- 
ment, in  the  passage  of  the  railroad  rate  bill,  which 
established  the  government  in  a  new  relationship  to 
the  railroads. 

As  Jackson  had  challenged  the  great  political-money 
power  of  his  time  so  Roosevelt  challenged  that  of  his. 
This  came  about  partly  through  no  design  of  his  own. 
The  railroad  power  in  some  states  had  been  supreme. 
It  had  all  but  usurped  the  very  sovereignty  of  govern- 
ment. It  controlled  legislatures.  It  corrupted  voters. 
It  packed  the  county  caucuses  with  hirelings  of  ward 
bosses,  and  determined  which  men  should,  and  which 
could  not,  go  to  state  capitals,  and  to  the  United  States 
Senate.  No  such  force  of  organized  wealth,  actively 
interested  in  American  politics,  had  arisen  since  Jack- 

127 


128        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

son's  defeat  of  the  Bank.  To  break  the  hold  which 
the  railroads  and  other  rich  corporations  had  upon  the 
machinery  through  which  state  and  national  officers 
were  nominated  and  elected,  the  people  were  obliged 
to  make  radical  alterations  in  their  elective  processes 
which  produced  results  affecting  the  very  character  of 
the  structure  of  government. 

An  intense  psychological  reaction  resulted  from  the 
sordid  and  unemotional  complacency  of  the  era  in 
American  politics  which  ended  with  McKinley's  Buf- 
falo speech.  The  animosity  of  the  people  was  turned 
upon  the  railroads,  and  there  were  numerous  other 
manifestations  of  the  awakening  of  progressive  ideas 
throughout  the  nation.  Some  of  these  had  their  origin 
in  the  Populist  movement  which  itself  began  in  a  selfish 
revolt  against  intolerable  economic  conditions  and  de- 
veloped into  a  political  movement.  In  some  of  the 
Western  States  the  Populist  party  seized  control  of 
the  machinery  of  state  government,  and  accomplished 
reforms  in  the  interest  of  certain  classes  through  the 
medium  of  remedial  legislation,  much  of  which  was 
unsound  and  destructive. 

From  about  1872  to  the  middle  of  the  'nineties  there 
was  a  period  of  economic  depression  in  the  United 
States  followed  by  a  period  of  great  prosperity.  Po- 
litically, conditions  in  America  had  never  been  so  sor- 
did, nor  were  they  to  be  so  sordid  again  until  the 
reaction  of  1919-20  which  followed  the  close  of  the 
World  War.  It  was  a  time  of  intense  partisanship  and 
political  narrowness.  The  one  big  question  settled  in 
this  era  was  the  money  question,  the  one  movement 
of  important  psychological  significance  the  Populist 
movement,  among  the  reflexes  of  which  was  to  be 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      129 

the  appearance  of  a  formidable  agricultural  group  in 
Congress  in  1922.  Low  prices  for  farm  products,  and 
inability  to  market,  produced  in  the  'nineties,  and 
again  thirty  years  later,  politico-economic  movements 
much  alike.  Both  were  selfish,  but  Populism  was 
bolder  and  more  desperate,  and  grew  into  an  idea 
which  admitted  of  no  compromise. 

Populism  sprang  from  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
debtor  class  to  help  themselves  by  increasing  the  value 
of  their  property  by  inflation  of  the  currency.  It  ran 
its  course,  and  came  to  an  end  as  a  political  phenome- 
non partly  for  the  reason  that  the  currency  inflated 
itself.  The  economic  ills  of  that  period  were  generally 
cured  by  two  things,  a  return  of  prosperity,  and  an 
increase  in  the  basic  currency.  The  period  of  economic 
expansion  and  development  of  the  'nineties  was  marked 
by  industrial  organization  and  the  consolidation  of 
wealth,  the  establishment  of  trusts  and  corporations 
of  vast  capitalization,  and  the  increasing  power  of  the 
big  business  of  the  country,  and  especially  of  the  rail- 
roads, in  politics.  The  effort  to  control  business  as 
the  supreme  necessity  of  the  people  to  prevent  business 
from  controlling  the  government  produced  the  progres- 
sive movement  which  reached  its  climax  in  1912. 

The  emotionalism  engendered  by  the  agitation  for 
reform  aroused  in  the  minds  of  the  people  an  over- 
whelming distrust  and  fear  of  their  public  servants, 
and  undoubtedly  led  occasionally  to  excesses.  In  seek- 
ing to  remedy  conditions  which  had  been  produced  by 
men  the  reforms  were  directed  not  against  individuals 
only,  but  against  certain  forms  and  structures  of  gov- 
ernment which  men  had  used  for  their  purposes. 

Western  insurgency  had  its  first  faint  beginnings  in 


130        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Kansas  as  early  as  1906,  with  a  complete  revolution 
within  the  old  Republican  organization  in  that  state 
of  new  ideas  and  prairie  genius  for  innovation.  Like 
the  western  insurgency  of  1810  it  was  born  of  impulses 
stimulated  by  considerations  both  moral  and  economic. 
It  was  a  manifestation  of  the  restlessness  of  spirit, 
that  sense  of  intellectual  independence,  that  calm  con- 
fidence in  manifest  destiny,  which  long  had  been,  and 
still  is,  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  West 
and  one  of  the  greatest  of  contributions  to  the  com- 
posite American  spiritual  character. 

Indirectly  from  this  insurgency  were  to  come  in- 
numerable reactions,  manifested  in  legislation  against 
the  railroads  and  the  trusts,  the  preservation  of  the 
nation's  natural  resources  for  the  benefit  of  the  masses 
of  the  people,  the  subjugation  of  the  Senate  to  the  will 
of  the  people,  the  freeing  of  the  elective  processes,  the 
enfranchisement  of  women,  welfare  legislation,  state- 
wide and  national  prohibition,  and  new  conceptions  of 
the  relationship  of  the  state  to  organized  labor  as  well 
as  to  organized  capital.  Some  of  these  were  brought 
about  at  the  expense  of  some  of  the  basic  principles 
of  the  organic  law.  All  their  ultimate  consequences 
have  not  as  yet  become  apparent.  This  movement 
permeated  the  West.  It  was  strong  in  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
and  the  grain  states.  It  spread  to  the  East,  and  in  the 
end  reached  out  boldly  for  control  of  the  government 
in  Washington,  precisely  as  the  insurgency  beyond  the 
Alleghanies,  in  1810,  had  sought  in  politics  the  means 
to  better  the  economic  and  social  conditions  of  the 
regions  lying  in  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  valleys. 

In  both  cases  the  machinery  of  government  which 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  accomplishment  of  purposes 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      131 

which  sprang  from  economic  necessity  fortified  by  col- 
lateral motives  of  nobler  quality,  was  taken  over  as 
the  first  step  toward  the  attainment  of  the  goal.  The 
destruction  of  the  power  of  the  speakership,  among 
other  things,  was  demanded.  The  conquest  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  was  the  first  objective  in 
the  national  field. 

The  attacks  upon  the  positions  of  the  entrenched 
railroad  power  were  preliminary  skirmishes.  Many  of 
the  political  leaders  of  the  people  who  brought  about 
radical  changes  in  the  relations  of  the  carriers  to  the 
government  had  no  idea  of  pursuing  their  reforms  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  reasonable  conservatism,  but  there 
were  others  who  were  concerned  not  merely  with  eco- 
nomic abuses,  but  were  determined  to  destroy  institu- 
tions of  the  government  which  had  endured  almost 
from  the  beginning.  They  aimed  at  the  rewriting  of 
the  Constitution  itself.  Some  were  swept  along  on  the 
rising  tide  of  progressivism  which  they  had  helped  to 
set  in  motion. 

The  determination  of  President  Roosevelt  to  match 
the  strength  of  the  government  against  the  power  of 
the  railroads  marked  the  ending  of  an  epoch  and  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  in  the  political  history  of  the 
American  people.  Mr.  McKinley's  administration  had 
extended  over  a  period  of  unparalleled  prosperity,  and 
this  condition  continued  to  near  the  close  of  that  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  It  was  a  period  of  gestation.  The  peo- 
ple at  the  beginning  were  contented,  and  intellectually 
inert.  There  was  a  surfeit  of  the  material  things  of 
life.  It  had  been  ushered  in  to  the  slogan  of  the  "full 
dinner  pail,"  and  ended  when  the  people  were  no  longer 
satisfied  with  life  if  only  their  bellies  might  be  full. 


132        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

In  the  new  time  the  appeal  was  to  be  to  the  mind  and 
not  to  the  stomach.  When  the  people  began  to  think 
and  to  examine,  the  old  order,  which  had  been  founded 
upon  the  gross  materialism  which  followed  the  Civil 
War  as  a  reaction  from  the  spiritual  movement  which 
had  saved  the  Union  and  freed  the  bondsman,  could 
not  survive  the  scrutiny. 

The  people,  in  their  new-found  political  righteous- 
ness, were  especially  inflamed  against  the  railroads; 
but  it  was  not  the  railroads  which  had  corrupted  the 
people,  but  the  people  who  had  corrupted  the  railroads. 
The  conquest  of  the  American  wilderness  by  the  steel 
rails  of  advancing  civilization  constitutes  one  of  the 
noblest  epics  ever  conceived  by  the  spirit  of  man. 
There  is  no  more  splendid  romance  in  the  annals  of  any 
people;  there  is  no  story  in  any  land  quite  like  it. 
Poetry  and  music,  the  arts  and  invention  can  show 
no  greater  powers  of  imagination  than  those  which 
urged  the  railroad  builders  to  their  trials  of  strength 
with  desert  and  mountain  canon.  In  the  construction 
of  their  masterpieces  the  workmen  encountered  the 
opposition  of  those  who  were  blind,  and  those  who 
were  selfish,  and  those  who  were  base.  The  people 
themselves  taught  the  railroads  what  they  knew  of  the 
meanness  of  human  nature,  and  having  learned  the 
lesson  they  applied  it  on  a  scale  commensurate  with 
their  genius  and  their  task.  The  corruption  of  venal 
legislatures  and  dishonest  politicians  was  incidental  to 
empire  building.  But  it  was  none  the  less  immoral. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  had  intended  to  include  the  revision 
of  the  tariff  in  his  program.  The  opposition  to  that 
idea  which  twice  he  encountered  in  the  House  deterred 
him.  The  President  believed  in  the  protective  theory, 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      183 

but  knew  nothing  of  the  tariff.  He  proposed,  in  his  con- 
sultations with  the  leaders  of  his  party  in  Congress 
to  lay  no  violent  hands  upon  that  principle  or  the  exist- 
ing law  in  which  it  was  exemplified.  But  he  thought 
that  in  some  particulars  that  law  could  be  improved 
by  amendment.  He  sounded  a  note  reminiscent  of  Mc- 
Kinley's  last  speech,  which  had  heralded  the  approach- 
ing renaissance,  but  it  did  not  reach  the  public  ear. 

Speaker  Cannon  opposed  any  suggestion  as  to  tariff 
revision,  and  the  President  acquiesced,  on  one  occasion 
after  an  annual  message  to  Congress,  containing  a  rec- 
ommendation on  that  subject,  had  been  written,  printed 
and  even  circulated.  At  so  late  a  moment  as  this  the 
paragraph  was  stricken  out,  and  the  Executive  gained 
in  exchange  support  in  the  House  for  the  new  policy 
which  he  contemplated  respecting  the  railroads,  and 
the  Hepburn  Bill,  a  substitute  for  the  earlier  Esch- 
Townsend  Bill,  a  legislative  and  not  an  executive  con- 
ception, was  given  the  right  of  way  in  the  House, 
in  consequence  of  an  understanding  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  party  leaders. 

The  power  of  the  organization  in  the  House  was 
put  behind  the  rate  bill,  and  the  Democratic  party 
throwing  its  support  to  it  from  the  beginning,  it  was 
passed  with  but  seven  votes  cast  in  the  negative,  all  of 
them  by  members  of  the  President's  own  party.  It 
encountered  serious  opposition  in  the  Senate,  however, 
and  from  Mr.  Roosevelt's  memorable  contest  with  that 
body  were  to  flow  consequences  of  great  importance. 
Among  the  people  it  led  to  an  intensification  of  the 
reaction  against  the  Senate  which,  in  the  end,  was  to 
change  the  character  of  that  august  institution  by  mak- 
ing it  responsible  and  submissive  to  public  opinion. 


134        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

The  Senate  to  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  what  came 
to  be  regarded  in  the  public  mind  as  his  railroad 
bill  was  strong  and  able,  brilliant,  but  stubborn,  and 
lacking  in  warmth  and  sympathy.  It  had  little  concep- 
tion of  the  state  of  mind  of  the  country,  to  which  it 
had  long  been  indifferent.  It  incorrectly  gaged  the 
power  of  public  opinion,  and  was  not  attuned  to  the 
spiritual  rhythm  of  the  times.  It  had  little  in  common 
with  the  aspirations  of  the  people,  and  was  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  progressive  tendencies  of  the  day.  It 
was  coldly  intellectual  and  stupidly  materialistic. 
Backed  by  the  people  and  the  House  of  Representatives, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  in  the  end  won  a  substantial  victory, 
whose  reactions  were  to  prepare  the  way  for  still 
greater  extensions  of  the  federal  power  over  the  rail- 
roads in  the  years  to  come.  But  for  the  precedents 
which  Roosevelt  established  in  asserting  the  right  of 
the  people  to  determine  what  should  be  a  just  and  rea- 
sonable rate  charged  by  the  carriers,  which  wrote  a 
new  principle  of  governmental  authority  into  the  laws, 
there  would  have  been  none  of  that  broad  foundation 
of  theory  upon  which  the  United  States  predicated  its 
relationship  to  the  railroads  during  and  after  the 
World  War. 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  victory  was  not  to  come  without  a 
struggle  which  had  disastrous  consequences  to  his 
party.  The  Hepburn  Bill  was  reported  to  the  Senate 
from  the  Interstate  Commerce  Committee  under  re- 
markable and  highly  significant  circumstances,*  and 
in  a  form  not  entirely  satisfactory  to  more  than  two 
members  of  the  committee.  Party  lines  in  the  com- 


*The  bill  was  reported  by  Mr.  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina. 
Senate  Reports,  Vol.  I,  Fifty-Ninth  Congress,  first  session. 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      135 

mittee  were  broken  down,  and  the  bill  finally  reached 
the  Senate  through  the  votes  of  five  members  of  the 
minority  party  and  three  members  of  the  majority 
party,  who  concurred  in  reporting  it  favorably.  The 
anomalous  situation  was  presented  of  a  bill  upon  which 
a  Republican  President  had  staked  his  political  reputa- 
tion being  reported  by  a  Democratic  Senator,  and  of  an 
adverse  report  being  made  against  it  by  the  Republi- 
can chairman  of  the  committee  and  four  of  the  most 
influential  and  able  of  the  Republican  Members  of  the 
Senate. 

In  the  popular  mind  the  Senate  was  coming  to  be 
regarded  as  the  citadel  of  predatory  wealth,  controlled 
by  the  rich  for  the  rich,  whose  Members  owed  their 
seats  to  the  aggregations  of  capital  which  they  served, 
and  who  were  above  the  laws  which  applied  to  lesser 
mortals.  It  was  true  that  there  were  many  rich  men 
inthe_Sejiate^  but  there  were  many,  too,  who  were  by 
fuTmeans  wealthy.  It  was  true,  also,  that  they  repre- 
sented there  the  swereigji_states_ofttie  Union,  ajid  not 
the  citizenship.  It  was  beside  the  question  that  if  this 
was  so  it  was  because  the  Constitution  had  intended 
that  it  should  be  so.  The  resistless  psychological  influ- 
ences which  were  tending  toward  the  destruction  of  the 
constitutional  conception  of  the  Senate  were  slowly  at 
work  to  bring  that  aristocratic  body  into  conformity 
with  the  public  will. 

From  the  beginning  the  firmness  with  which 
Speaker  Cannon  had  insisted  upon  maintaining  the 
prestige  of  the  House  in  its  relationships  with  the 
Senate  had  been  immensely  popular,  and  while  there 
had  been  a  few  discontented  spirits  in  the  former  from 
the  time  of  Carlisle,  and  Reed,  the  full  force  of  the 


136        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

reaction  against  the  House  of  Representatives  was  not 
felt  until  under  President  Taft  the  party  in  power  had 
sought  to  check  the  progressive  tendencies  of  the  new 
day.  The  blows  which  Roosevelt  struck  at  the  Senate 
at  once  alarmed  and  delighted  the  people.  Some  ugly 
charges  against  Senators  of  great  distinction,  and  of 
both  parties,  brought  by  those  who  found  in  the  oppor- 
tunities of  the  time  openings  for  attacks,  still  further 
inflamed  public  opinion  against  the  Senate,  and  much 
of  the  pent-up  restlessness  of  the  country,  which  had 
not  wholly  recovered  from  the  reactions  of  Populism, 
was  vented  against  the  most  conspicuous  bulwark  of 
conservatism  in  the  government.  Nor  did  Mr.  Roose- 
velt hesitate  then,  and  later,  to  launch  his  barbed  shafts 
of  criticism  against  the  courts,  and  even  against  the 
Supreme  Court.  The  idea  took  possession  of  many 
minds,  that  the  Senate  was  venal  and  the  Judiciary  not 
above  suspicion,  and  that  big  business  and  corrupt 
bosses  controlled  the  judges  on  the  bench  and  states- 
men in  the  national  legislature.  There  was  a  demand 
for  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  as  a 
substitute  for  the  constitutional  method  of  impeach- 
ment, and  these  reforms  were  everywhere  written  into 
the  statute  books  of  the  progressive  states.  The  theory 
that  the  people  could  do  better  by  direct  action  those 
things  which  since  the  foundation  of  the  government 
had  been  done  under  the  representative  system,  rapidly 
gained  proponents. 

In  many  states  the  convention  system  of  making 
nominations  was  torn  down,  that  corrupt  and  skilful 
politicians  might  no  longer  control  the  elections  of 
officers  of  the  state  and  national  government  by  dictat- 
ing their  nomination,  and  the  primary  everywhere  be- 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      137 

gan  to  supplant  the  older  method,  which  had  early 
become  a  firmly  established  institution.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's fight  against  the  railroads  carried  into  every 
American  home  disclosures  of  the  shockingly  immoral 
practises  of  secret  rebating,  through  which  favored 
corporations  were  enriched  and  their  competitors 
ruined,  discriminations  which  enabled  economic  com- 
binations to  grasp  the  basic  industries  of  the  nation. 
Roosevelt  to  an  extraordinary  degree  had  the  instinct 
of  publicity.  More  than  any  other  man  of  his  time  he 
interested  the  people  in  things  which  concerned  them 
practically  and  spiritually.  He  showed  them  how  to 
use  their  senses,  and  made  their  souls  expand.  Yet 
like  all  the  powerful  reactions  in  American  politics  the 
progressive  impulses  which  finally  swelled  into  a 
splendid  idealism  were  largely  economic  in  their  origin. 
The  forces  which  they  were  to  set  in  motion  were 
scarcely  at  work  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  left  the  White 
House,  doubtless  not  realizing  that  he  had  utilized  the 
magic  of  his  great  office  for  the  propagation  of  political 
principles  antagonistic  to  and  destructive  of  the  in- 
herent genius  of  his  party,  and  of  the  party  system  in 
which  he  believed. 

So  strong  was  Roosevelt's  hold  upon  his  party  at 
that  time  that  upon  retiring  he  was  able  to  name  his 
successor,  precisely  as  Jackson,  whom  he  more  closely 
resembled  than  has  any  other  President,  passed  the 
presidential  succession  to  Van  Buren.  It  is  more  than 
a  coincidence  that  Mr.  Taft,  like  the  brilliant  lieutenant 
of  Jackson,  enjoyed  only  a  single  term  in  office.  The 
methods  through  which  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Taft 
was  obtained  were  not  employed  without  creating  con- 
ditions full  of  danger,  but  the  subsequent  destruction 


138        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

by  Mr.  Roosevelt  of  the  President  whom  he  had  created 
was  made  possible  very  largely  by  the  general  disinte- 
gration of  Republican  opinion  which  resulted  from  the 
assaults  launched  against  those  basic  institutions  of 
government  for  which  the  party,  and  its  predecessors, 
had  been  originally  sponsors. 

This,  then,  was  the  psychological  background  of  the 
most  tremendous  political  reaction  in  the  whole  history 
of  the  American  experiment  in  government,  which  pro- 
duced the  annihilation  of  the  speakership  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  the  second  most  powerful  office 
in  the  government. 

In  the  events  through  which  these  vitilizing,  as 
well  as  destructive,  impulses  are  visualized,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt was  an  actor,  but  he  did  not  initiate  the  powerful 
movements  of  spiritual  and  intellectual  forces  which 
afterward  he  consolidated. 

The  ethical  impulses  which  brought  about  the 
lownfall  of  the  structure  of  party  government  in  the 
louse  of  Representatives  originated  in  the  country, 
imong  the  people,  and  not  in  the  House,  nor  in  Wash- 
ngton.  The  House  itself  slowly  responded  to  a  de- 
nand  for  reform  in  general,  which  finally  centered 
upon  the  speakership  in  particular  as  the  seat  of  the 
power  in  Congress  against  which  the  public  will,  or 
rather  a  minority  will,  had  set  itself.  The  elements 
which  contributed  to  the  composition  of  this  deter- 
mined, if,  at  the  beginning,  small  popular  opinion,  were 
numerous.  They  found  their  vitality  in  the  most  con- 
temptible, and  in  the  noblest  of  motives,  in  impulses 
which  on  the  one  hand  sprang  from  the  purest  of 
ideals  in  politics,  and  on  the  other  from  selfishness  and 
greed.  Although  all  these  forces,  which  finally  brought 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      139 

together  in  a  common  enterprise  the  ultra  "reaction- 
ary" and  the  "radical,"  reached  their  climax  in  the 
attack  upon  the  speakership  in  1909  and  1910,  and 
upon  the  Senate,  and  the  system  of  making  political 
nominations,  they  were  not  born  at  the  same  source  of 
inspiration,  nor  did  they  exert  themselves  during  the 
same  definite  period  of  time. 

The  destruction  of  the  speakership  was  acquiesced 
in  by  the  House  in  consequence  of  a  temporary  coali- 
tion formed  in  that  body  between  a  minority  of  the 
Republican  party,  and  the  Democratic  party,  both  of 
which,  unfortified  themselves  by  power,  and  having  no 
power  to  lose,  yielded  to  a  demand  which  the  majority 
of  the  majority  party,  fully  clothed  with  a  great  power, 
felt  strong  enough  to  resist,  and  which  it  did  resist. 

The  oligarchy  which  had  grown  up  around  the 
Speaker  was  inherently  selfish.  It  constituted  a  privi- 
leged class  of  leaders  in  whom  the  development  of 
arrogance  was  inevitable.  It  was  by  nature  a  close 
corporation,  and  subconsciously  its  instinct  was  to  per- 
petuate itself.  It  became  aristocratic  and  exclusive. 
It  governed  well,  but  it  governed  in  accordance  with 
its  own  ideas  of  what  constituted  good  government.  It 
was  proud,  and  justly  so,  standing,  as  it  did,  at  the 
head  of  the  most  majestic  parliamentary  body  on  earth. 
Its  very  perfections  constituted  its  greatest  weakness. 
It  became  narrow  through  pride,  and  overconfident. 

Against  the  system  which  was  thus  strongly  en- 
trenched in  power  the  ambitious  young  Member  of  the 
House,  gifted  with  qualities  of  high  ability,  anxious 
to  make  his  influence  felt  by  participating  in  the  shap- 
ing of  legislative  policies,  fresh  from  the  people  and 
desirous  of  translating  into  laws  some  of  the  emotion- 


140        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

alism  and  idealism  which  stirred  them,  and  uncon- 
taminated  by  that  spirit  of  clan  and  class  bred  by 
long  years  of  service  in  the  atmosphere  of  Washing- 
ton, found  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  exert  the  full 
force  of  his  intellectuality  and  character. 

Impatience  for  promotion  which  the  system  ren- 
dered difficult  of  attainment  for  the  man  without 
wealth  and  social  position,  factors  which  counted 
heavily,  led  to  a  restlessness  which  was  quickly  trans- 
lated into  resentment  by  men  of  high  temper  and  im- 
perious will  coming  from  constituencies  which  were 
being  agitated  to  the  depths  of  their  soul  by  the  quick- 
ening impulses  of  the  political  renaissance. 

The  power  which  behind  the  entrenchments  of  the 
rules  held  the  strategic  positions  and  dominated  the 
House  with  weapons  in  whose  use  it  was  trained,  was 
quick  to  note  the  appearance,  upon  the  floor,  and  in 
committee,  of  men  who  showed  a  disposition  to  be  in- 
tractable. The  spirit  of  incipient  revolt  was  crushed 
at  the  outset.  The  methods  used  were  often  question- 
able. Men  who  would  not  fall  into  line  were  punished 
in  petty  ways  which  were  contemptible.  They  found 
it  impossible  to  obtain  appropriations  for  their  dis- 
tricts in  the  special  bills  for  river  and  harbor  im- 
provements which  were  brought  in  from  time  to  time. 
The  man  who  wanted  a  new  court-house,  or  a  federal 
building,  in  his  district,  was  intimidated.  The  "pork 
barrel"  bill  was  an  institution  under  the  old  system, 
and,  bluntly  speaking,  men  were  bribed  and  sold  their 
birthrights  for  a  mess  of  post-offices.  There  were 
times  when  the  atmosphere  in  the  House  was  not  whole- 
some, when  men's  motives  were  questioned,  if  not 
openly,  at  least  secretly,  by  their  fellow  Members. 


THE  SENATE  ON  THE  DEFENSIVE      141 

When  insurgency  had  increased  to  a  point  where 
it  began  to  excite  serious  alarm,  the  most  drastic 
measures  of  punishment  were  employed.  Members 
were  removed  from  their  places  on  committees.  Not 
only  were  the  doors  to  advancement  in  the  House  closed 
to  them,  but  they  were  deprived  of  their  rights  and 
privileges  and  curtailed  in  their  opportunities  to  serve 
their  constituents  and  the  nation.  When  the  oligarchy 
was  forced  on  the  defensive  it  fought  viciously.  Its 
very  efforts  to  defend  itself  furnished  arguments 
against  it. 

As  the  insurgent  movement,  the  parent  of  the  pro- 
gressive movement,  spread  across  the  continent,  find- 
ing a  responsive  echo  in  every  part  of  the  Union,  it 
was  increasingly  reflected  in  the  House.  It  was  em- 
braced by  men  of  the  highest  personal  character  and 
of  recognized  intellectuality  and  ability.  The  voices  of 
the  exponents  of  the  new  theories  of  political  morality 
were  heard  also  in  the  Senate,  faintly,  at  first,  and 
then  in  increasing  volume.  Men  like  Albert  J.  Bever- 
idge,  of  Indiana,  and  Jonathan  P.  Dolliver,  of  Iowa, 
had  already,  in  the  Sixtieth  Congress,  sounded  a  note 
that  was  to  swell  into  a  mighty  chorus.  William  E. 
Borah,  of  Idaho,  had  made  his  first  appearance,  and  in 
the  succeeding  Congress  Allison,  the  venerable  Repub- 
lican leader,  had  passed  on,  and  Cummins  had  taken 
his  place,  fresh  from  his  spectacular  battle  with  the 
railroad  power.  LaFollette  was  there,  then  as  after- 
ward a  solitary  figure,  standing  a  little  apart  from 
all  others.  These  men,  all  strong  and  able,  all  imbued 
with  progressive  ideas,  were  destined  to  be  the  advance 
guard  of  a  small  army  of  statesmen  whose  minds  had 
felt  the  liberalizing  influences  of  the  new  day  and  who 


142        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

carried  with  them  into  the  Senate  ideas  which  were 
to  change  that  venerable  institution  out  of  all  sem- 
blance to  its  former  self.  As  yet  the  places  of  power 
wer^  held  by  the  distinguished  men  who  belonged 
to  a  regime  that  was  passing,  never  to  return.  New 
England  was  still  "in  the  saddle."  Hale  and  Frye,  of 
Maine,  stood  first  and  second  on  the  Senate  roster, 
and  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island,  third,  and  -Gallagher, 
of  New  Hampshire,  and  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts, 
ranked  six  and  seven,  in  the  Congress  which  was  to 
witness  the  fall  of  the  speakership. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910 

BY  THE  winter  of  1909  the  reaction  against  the 
established  order  in  Congress  was  running  in  full  tide. 
It  was  accentuated  by  the  dissatisfaction  with  which 
the  Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Law  had  been  received.  A 
new  word,  "insurgency,"  had  passed  into  the  coinage 
of  every-day  speech.  The  attacks  against  the  speaker- 
ship  were  coincident  with  a  wave  of  criticism  directed 
against  the  new  customs  revenue  law,  a  criticism  by 
no  means  wholly  partisan,  and  which  doubtless  drew 
a  part  of  its  virility  from  the  fact,  as  was  charged, 
that  Mr.  Cannon  had  declined  to  use  the  power  vested 
in  him  to  favor  certain  powerful  business  interests. 
Some  of  the  leading  Republican  newspapers  about  this 
time  joined  in  the  demand  for  the  removal  of  the 
Speaker,  but  it  is  no  part  of  the  purpose  here  to  dis- 
cuss their  motives. 

It  was  said  of  Mr.  Cannon  by  his  opponents  within 
his  own  party  that  he  was  "riding  the  very  whirlwind 
and  directing  the  storms  for  his  party." 

The  system  which  Mr.  Speaker  Reed  had  perfected      f 
was  designed  to  be  unbending.    The  great  leader  whoy/ 
had  raised  party  government  in  the  House  to  an  un- 
precedented height  of  power  never  dreamed  that  the 
organization  which  he  had  fashioned  could  be  success- 
fully challenged  by  the  party  which  had  sponsored  it, 
and  which  had  risen  to  greatness  through  its  instru- 

143 


144        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

mentality.    His  lieutenants,  who  had  come  into  power 
themselves  upon  his  retirement,  had  been  trained  in 
a  school  which  taught  only  the  lessons  of  strength,  not   / 
of  weakness.    Like  Napoleon's  drummer  boy  they  hadv 
never  learned  to  sound  retreat.    Mr.  Cannon  and  his 
associates  met  the  storm  standing.    Jhey  would  not 
yield,  nor  did  they  flinch.    Only  once  did  they  compro- 
mise, and  then  neither  with  sincerity  nor  good  faith. 
This  was  with  respect  to  the  adoption  of  the  rule  estab- 
lishing "Calendar  Wednesday." 

They  had  no  conception  of  the  moral  strength  of 
the  forces  which  had  been  loosed  upon  the  country. 
They  believed,  at  least  in  the  beginning,  that  they  were 
called  upon  to  contend  against  merely  an  insurgency 
in  the  ranks  of  the  dissatisfied  of  their  own  party  in 
the  House,  and  with  such  movement  they  felt  able  to 
cope.  It  was  the  augmentation  of  this  small  group 
of  sincere  rebellants  against  the  stern  discipline  which 
the  leadership  of  the  Republican  party  imposed  as  an 
obligation  of  loyalty,  by  faint-hearted  recruits  respond- 
ing slowly  to  the  increasing  progressivism  of  the 
country,  which  brought  about  the  final  party  catas- 
trophe. 

To  this  last  class  belonged  certain  men  who  would 
have  been  tractable  enough,  however  much  the  system 
irked  them,  if  they  had  not  been  peculiarly  susceptible 
to  those  influences  in  the  country  outside  of  the  House 
to  which  the  uncompromising  veterans  of  the  old 
regime  were  at  first  indifferent  and  afterward  bitterly 
hostile.  Thus  a  moral  sentiment  in  the  nation  encour- 
aged revolt  in  the  House,  a  sentiment  by  no  means 
wholly  political,  but  one  which  permeated  the  whole 
fabric  of  social  life.  Speaker  Cannon  met  it  in  the 


145 

spirit  of  1889,  not  1909.  His  position  seemed  im- 
pregnable. He  towered  above  the  House  like  Gulliver 
in  Lilliput. 

"I  have  seen  this  man,"  said  one  of  the  leaders  of 
the  minority,  "wield  more  power  than  the  President." 
In  point  of  influence  and  authority  unquestionably  at 
this  time  he  occupied  the  second  office  under  the  gov- 
ernment. The  House,  under  his  leadership,  had  even 
gone  so  far  as  to  lay  upon  the  table  a  displeasing  com- 
munication from  the  President  of  the  United  States,  a 
most  unusual  rebuke.  The  germ  of  the  power  of  the 
speakership  originally  implanted  in  the  Colonial  As- 
semblies had  produced  a  mighty  product.  The  delicate  I 
balance  of  the  constitutional  plan  of  government  was/j 
being  disturbed  by  the  aggrandizement  of  the  legisla- 
tive branch,  and  public  opinion  was  at  work  subcon- 
sciously to  restore  it. 

The  idealists  in  the  nation  at  large  and  the  selfish 
seekers  of  that  special  preferment  which  the  power 
of  the  speakership  declined  to  give,  unconsciously 
worked  together  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  same 
end  but  actuated  by  different  motives.  As  for  a  fun- 
damental reform  in  the  very  structure  of  the  govern- 
mental system,  such  a  thought  was  in  the  minds  of 
only  a  few  of  those  who  finally  brought  it  about.  In 
the  end  the  House  surrendered,  not  all  at  once,  but 
gradually,  and  prepared,  at  the  insistence  of  an  or- 
ganized minority  in  the  country  whose  strength  no- 
body knew,  or  could  exactly  ascertain,  and  which  is 
not  known  to  this  day,  to  weaken  the  rules  of  the 
House  which  had  been  adopted  in  order  to  provide  for 
the  orderly  conduct  of  business  under  the  constitutional 
mandate.  At  the  demand  of  the  people  the  House 


146        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

prepared  to  render  itself  incapable  of  serving  the 
people  to  the  best  of  its  ability,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  solemn  injunction  of  the  Constitution,  through  the 
exercise  of  powers  with  which  the  organic  law  had 
clothed  it  for  that  specific  purpose. 

In  a  spirit  of  liberalism  not  untouched  with  hypoc- 
risy the  very  Republicans  who  had  assisted  Mr.  Reed 
and  Mr.  Cannon  in  fastening  the  rules  upon  the  House 
for  their  own  advantage  and  that  of  their  party  and 
their  constituencies,  and  who  had  consistently  voted 
for  the  measures  which  they  and  the  party  had  favored, 
and  against  those  which  they  had  opposed,  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  insurgent  idealists,  who  had  arrayed  them- 
selves against  restrictive  party  discipline  from  motives 
of  altruism  and  because  they  desired,  by  destroying 
the  power  of  the  speakership,  to  liberalize  the  rules 
as  a  step  preliminary  to  the  introduction  and  passage 
of  measures  liberalizing  the  laws. 

Hence,  so  far  as  a  large  part  of  the  Republican 
majority  of  the  House  was  concerned,  the  movement 
against  the  power  of  the  speakership  was  predicated 
on  expediency  and  not  sincerity. 

The  movement  was  none  the  less  successful,  how- 
ever, in  consequence  of  the  dissimulation  which  perme- 
ated it;  but  it  was  to  lead  to  confusion  in  the  end  be- 
cause, being  so  largely  selfish  it  was  contrary  to  the 
political  traditions  and  genius  of  the  Republican  party. 

At  this  time  all  but  the  extremists  among  the  in- 
surgents still  believed  in  government  through  political 
parties,  and  subscribed  to  the  doctrine  that  the  ma- 
jority should  rule ;  but  they  also  held  that  the  members 
of  a  minority  within  a  majority  had  the  moral  right  to 
use  their  best  endeavors  to  see  to  it  that  the  minority 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  147 

of  to-day  became  the  majority  of  to-morrow.  If  this 
policy  could  have  been  pursued  harmoniously  a  reform- 
ation in  the  House  might  have  been  accomplished 
gradually,  and  not  through  the  destruction  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  party  government,  by  working  such  changes 
upon  the  minds  of  individuals  as  to  bring  majorities 
to  the  support  of  those  measures  advocated  by  the 
progressive  groups.  But  this  theory  did  not  make  due 
allowance  for  the  human  equation.  The  regular  lead- 
ers of  the  party  could  not  disassociate  impersonal 
criticism  from  personal  criticism.  Opposition  to  the 
abstract  idea  to  which  the  organization  leaders  sub- 
scribed as  a  matter  virtually  of  political  faith,  of  party 
religion,  was  construed  by  these  men  at  the  head  of 
the  organization  as  being  opposition  directed  against 
themselves  personally  and  the  party  as  a  whole.  Thus 
animosities  were  engendered,  and  men  who  had  begun 
by  being  mild  reformers  within  their  party  speedily 
found  themselves  outside  the  pale.  Thus  insurgency 
in  the  House  fed,  like  a  sore,  upon  itself. 

The  crisis  was  precipitated  without  warning  on 
March  16,  1910,  a  memorable  date  in  the  history  of 
the  American  Congress.  It  was  "Calendar  Wednes- 
day," and  under  the  new  rule  there  should  have  been 
a  call  of  committees.  With  that  surprising  lack  of 
psychic  instinct  which  is  the  cause  of  the  downfall  of 
most  organized  force,  the  organization  had  determined 
to  ignore  the  will  of  the  House,  and  to  deal  this  innova- 
tion a  serious  blow  at  the  outset. 

Under  the  Calendar  Wednesday  rule  no  other  busi- 
ness was  in  order  unless  that  rule  were  dispensed  with 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  House.  Calendar  Wednes- 
day could  be  set  aside  only  by  business  of  higher  privi- 


148       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

lege.  Mr.  Crumpacker,  of  Indiana,  chairman  of  the 
Census  Committee,  one  of  the  minor  subalterns  of  the 
organization,  called  up  for  consideration  a  House 
joint  resolution  from  that  committee,  providing  for 
an  amendment  to  the  law  for  taking  the  census,  and 
the  Speaker  ruled  that  it  was  privileged  under  the 
Constitution,  and  quoted  decisions  by  Speakers  Reed, 
Keifer  and  Henderson.  A  point  of  order  having  been 
made  against  the  motion  of  Mr.  Crumpacker,  it  was 
overruled  by  the  Chair.  From  this  decision  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald, of  New  York,  appealed,  and  said,  in  reply  to 
a  question  asked  by  Mr.  James  R.  Mann,  of  Illinois, 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  organization,  that  it  was  his 
contention  that  no  business  could  be  presented  to  the 
House  on  Calendar  Wednesday  without  dispensing  with 
that  call  by  a  two-thirds  vote.  The  clearest  exposition 
of  the  case  was  made,  from  the  Democratic  side,  by 
Mr.  Underwood,  of  Alabama,  at  that  time  the  most 
promising  figure  in  the  House  on  either  side  of  the 
center  aisle. 

"I  am  very  much  opposed  to  the  ruling  of  the 
Speaker  in  this  case,"  he  said,  "and  hope  the  House 
will  reverse  the  decision  of  the  Chair,  because  I  believe 
if  the  decision  of  the  Chair  is  adopted  as  the  ruling  of 
the  House  in  this  case  Calendar  Wednesday  will  pass 
away  and  be  of  no  more  benefit  to  the  House  than  is 
the  original  right  to  call  the  calendar.  The  reason  you 
could  not  do  business  under  the  old  rule  on  the  call  of 
the  calendar  was  that  the  chairmen  of  committees, 
under  direction  of  the  Speaker  or  the  Rules  Committee, 
could  inject  between  the  House  and  the  calendar  other 
business  that  they  denominated  as  privileged  business, 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  149 

and  your  calendar  was  gone.  Now,  the  House  in  its 
wisdom  in  adopting  the  rule  for  Calendar  Wednesday, 
said  that  this  Calendar  Wednesday  should  not  be  inter- 
fered with  except  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  this  House. 
That  does  not  mean  a  ruling  of  the  Speaker ;  that  does 
not  mean  a  decision  of  the  Speaker  as  to  whether  a 
matter  is  privileged  or  is  not  privileged.  It  means  a 
vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  Members  of  this  House.  If 
the  gentleman  from  Indiana  had  brought  this  bill  into 
the  House  on  some  other  day  besides  Calendar  Wednes- 
day, could  not  the  House  have  rejected  the  considera- 
tion of  his  bill  by  a  majority  vote?  Then,  if  the  House 
can  refuse  to  consider  a  question  of  taking  the  census 
or  relating  to  the  taking  of  the  census  on  any  day  of 
the  week,  why  can  not  it  by  its  rule  say  it  shall  not  be 
in  order  to  consider  it  on  one  day  in  the  week?  If  it 
is  in  order  because  it  is  privileged  to  consider  this  bill 
because  it  relates  to  the  taking  of  the  census,  it  is 
equally  in  order  to  consider  to-day  a  bill  raising  reve- 
nue. Does  not  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
fix  the  duty  on  Congress  and  on  this  House  to  consider 
all  revenue  bills?  Is  a  bill  to  take  the  census  of  any 
more  vital  import  to  the  people  of  the  United  States 
than  a  bill  to  raise  revenue  to  support  the  government? 
Is  it  of  any  greater  privilege  or  has  it  been  considered 
of  any  greater  privilege  in  the  history  of  this  House? 
Not  at  all.  And  therefore  if  this  House  to-day  votes 
to  sustain  the  Speaker  and  recognize  the  bill  of  the 
gentleman  from  Indiana  as  privileged,  and  thereby  set 
aside  Calendar  Wednesday,  you  open  the  door  to  inject 
between  you  and  the  call  of  the  calendar  an  appropria- 
tion bill,  a  revenue  bill,  and  other  matters  of  privilege 


150        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

that  will  destroy  the  rule  you  adopted  in  the  last  ses- 
sion of  Congress  for  the  benefit  of  this  House.* 

"Therefore  I  say  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
the  membership  of  this  House  shall,  when  the  roll  is 
called  to-day,  declare  whether  they  stand  for  the  House 
to  attend  to  the  business  that  the  House  thinks  should 
be  considered,  or  whether  they  intend  to  go  back  to 
the  old  system  and  allow  the  Rules  Committee  to  say 
to  you  what  business  shall  be  transacted  in  this  House." 

Mr.  Crumpacker  called  the  attention  of  the  House 
to  the  fact  that  the  resolution  was  privileged  under 
the  Constitution  because  it  related  to  a  duty  which 
the  Constitution  expressly  requires  Congress  to  per- 
form every  ten  years. 

"If  this  resolution  is  not  privileged  to-day,"  he 
said,  "it  has  no  privilege  at  all.  I  want  the  mem- 
bership to  bear  that  proposition  in  mind.  If  this 
resolution  does  not  go  through  to-day,  it  can  not  go 
through,  because  if  it  has  any  privilege  at  all,  it  is 
not  under  the  rules  of  the  House  but  in  spite  of  them. 
If  it  has  any  privilege  at  all  it  is  under  the  Consti- 
tution; and  if  the  rules  are  higher  than  the  Consti- 
tution to-day,  they  will  be  to-morrow,  and  every  other 
day  of  this  session  of  Congress.  There  is  no  use  4iL  , 
quibbling  about  this  proposition^' 

These  two  statements  joined  the  issue.  The  whole  . 
House  saw  that  it  must  come  to  a  momentous  deci- 
sion. Among  the  insurgents  there  was  already  a 
realization  that  they  had  come  to  the  parting  of  the 
ways.  Mr.  Townsend,  of  Michigan,  one  of  the  more 
conservative  of  the  progressives,  a  man  who,  with  Mr. 

^Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3243. 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  151 

Esch,  of  Wisconsin,  had  brought  into  the  House  the  first 
railroad  reform  bill,  before  the  Hepburn  Bill  had 
been  fathered  by  President  Roosevelt,  said  frankly 
that  it  would  mean  an  end  of  Calendar  Wednesday  if 
the  decision  of  the  Chair  should  stand. 

"The  Chair  in  ruling  that  this  is  a  privileged  ques- 
tion," said  Speaker  Cannon,  at  the  conclusion  of  a 
technical  debate,  "follows  a  uniform  line  of  prece- 
dents wherever  the  matter  has  been  ruled  upon  in 
the  history  of  Congress. 

"Now,  in  order  that  Calendar  Wednesday  may  be 
protected,  gentlemen  say  that  the  Chair  should  be 
overruled  and  a  precedent  established  that  no  busi- 
ness of  any  kind  can  come  up  for  consideration  on 
Calendar  Wednesday.  'But/  says  somebody,  'what 
harm  can  it  do?'  So  far  as  the  Chair  is  personally 
concerned,  whatever  might  perhaps  be  in  the  mind 
of  one  or  more  Members,  seemingly  to  rebuke  the 
Chair,  through  pique  or  otherwise,  the  Chair  cares 
nothing  about  a  proposition  of  that  kind.  If  the 
House  sees  proper  to  overrule  the  precedents  and  to 
make  this  precedent  that  may  come  to  plague  the 
House  in  the  future,  well  and  good.  The  House  has 
the  power  to  do  it,  and  the  Chair  has  no  feeling  of 
pride  or  vanity  in  the  premises.  'But/  says  some- 
body, 'is  the  House  bound  to  consider  this  question 
when  it  is  before  the  House?*  No.  There  is  no  pos- 
sible question  that  can  come  before  the  House  that  it 
is  bound  to  consider.  On  the  question  of  considera- 
tion, if  the  point  of  order  had  not  been  made  upon 
this  joint  resolution,  the  House  could  have  refused 
to  consider  it.  That  is  one  way  in  which  the  House 
could  have  gone  on  with  Calendar  Wednesday. 


X52        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

"Having  said  this  much,  if  the  Chair  has  suc- 
ceeded in  placing  the  House  in  possession  of  the 
reasons  which  caused  him  to  make  the  ruling  he  did 
make,  he  is  quite  content,  as  the  Chair  must  be,  with 
what  the  majority  of  the  House  may  do.  If  the  Chair 
was  four  inches  wide  and  a  thousandth  of  an  inch 
thick,  the  Chair  would  feel  some  gratification  if  the 
House  should  see  proper  to  overrule  the  Chair  upon 
the  point  of  order  that  the  action  of  the  majority  of 
the  House,  under  its  rules,  in  reversing  the  present 
Speaker,  would  make  it  plain  that  he  has  no  more  and 
no  less  authority  than  any  Speaker  who  has  preceded 
him,  and  would  set  at  rest  the  question  whether  the 
Speaker  'doth,  like  Colossus,  bestride  the  world/  " 

The  Speaker  then  put  the  question,  "Shall  the 
ruling  of  the  Chair  stand  as  the  judgment  of  the 
House?"  and  Mr.  Underwoo.d  demanding  the  yeas  and 
nays,  the  vote  was  yeas,  112,  nays  163.* 

"The  decision  of  the  Chair  does  not  stand  as  the 
decision  of  the  House,"  announced  the  Speaker.  "The 
call  rests  upon  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs." 

As  Mr.  Cannon's  gavel  fell  an  epoch  in  the  long 
and  brilliant  history  of  the  American  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives came  to  an  end.  A  new  era  had  begun. 
It  was  not  that  the  Chair  had  been  overruled  by  the 
vote  of  the  House.  The  significance  of  this  vote  lay 
_Jn  the  fact  that  the  oligarchy  had  been  met  in  parlia- 
mentary battle  to  the  death,  and  that  it  had  gone  down 
\  to  defeat  on  an  issue  which  lay  at  the  root  of  the 
\  greatest  question  then  agitating  the  national  mind. 
The  effort  of  the  organized  leadership  with  its  vast 


* Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3251. 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  153 

powers  to  thwart  the  will  of  the  liberals  and  balk 
them  of  the  fruits  of  the  first  victory  they  had  won, 
in  gaining  Calendar  Wednesday,  had  failed.  If  Mr. 
Cannon  had  been  psychic  he  might  have  read  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall,  but  he  was  not,  not  even 
then. 

While  this  contest  had  been  in  progress,  and  the 
fate  of  Calendar  Wednesday  was  being  determined, 
Mr.  George  W.  Norris,  a  Member  from  Nebraska,  had 
been  an  interested  spectator.  In  his  pocket  there 
had  been  for  a  month  a  resolution  proposing  the  most 
radical  revision  of  the  rules  of  the  House  that  had 
been  advanced  in  half  a  hundred  years.  It  was  aimed 
directly  at  one  of  the  three  great  powers  of  the 
speakership.  Mr.  Norris  was  an  insurgent  of  pro- 
nounced type.  He  had  long  been  out  of  sympathy 
with  his  party,  belligerent,  combative  and  aggressive 
in  his  opposition  to  the  system  of  House  government 
under  the  Speaker.  He  was  outside  the  breastworks 
of  his  party,  "off  the  reservation"  as  they  would  say 
in  the  Indian  country  whence  he  had  come. 

So  perfect  was  the  system  through  which  the  oli- 
garchy which  surrounded  the  Speaker  functioned  that 
although  Mr.  Norris  was  a  resourceful  man  he  had 
found  no  means  to  batter  down  the  fortifications  in 
which  it  was  entrenched.  He  could  not  get  considera- 
tion for  any  resolution  which  he  might  seek  to  offer 
proposing  an  amendment  of  the  rules  of  the  House.  It 
would  simply  lie  in  a  committee  pigeonhole,  and  he 
could  obtain  no  report  upon  it.  He  could  not  hope  that 
the  Speaker  would  permit  him  to  present  it  to  the 
consideration  of  the  House,  for  the  Speaker's  absolute 
power  of  recognition  enabled  him  to  ignore  the  pres- 


154        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ence  of  the  recalcitrant  Norrises  of  the  House  as  com- 
pletely as  though  they  did  not  exist.  The  Nebraska 
Member's  resolution  was  becoming  dog-eared  in  his 
pocket.  He  could  find  no  opportunity  to  bring  it  be- 
fore the  House.  The  action  of  Mr.  Crumpacker,  in 
seeking  to  set  aside  Calendar  Wednesday  by  calling 
up  a  resolution  privileged  under  the  Constitution,  pre- 
sented him  with  one. 

On  the  day  following  the  reversal  of  Mr.  Speaker 
Cannon's  decision,  March  seventeenth,  Mr.  Norris 
arose  in  his  place,  and  offered  a  resolution  "made 
privileged  by  the  Constituion." 

"If  it  is  a  resolution  made  privileged  by  the  Consti- 
tution," said  the  Speaker,  "the  gentleman  will  pre- 
sent it."  There  was  laughter,  which  quickly  died 
away.  The  resolution  was  sent  to  the  desk,  and  was 
read.  It  proposed  the  abolition  of  the  existing  Com- 
mittee on  Rules  of  five  members,  and  the  substitution 
therefor  of  an  elective  Committee  on  Rules  of  fif- 
teen, which  should  select  its  own  chairman,  and  of 
which  the  Speaker  should  not  be  a  member.  It  would 
have  stripped  from  the  speakership  at  a  single  stroke 
one  of  the  greatest  sources  of  the  power  of  that  office. 

The  organization  instantly  perceived  its  danger, 
although  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  fully  appreciated 
the  extent  to  which  the  "boring  from  within"  proc- 
esses had  been  carried  by  the  liberal  leaders  of  the 
Republican  side.  Mr.  Dalzell,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  rank- 
ing Republican  member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules, 
and  who  was,  with  Mr.  James  A.  Tawney,  of  Minne- 
sota, chairman  of  Appropriations,  and  Mr.  Payne,  of 
New  York,  one  of  the  principal  Floor  Leaders  of  the 
party,  made  the  point  of  order  against  the  Norris 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  155 

Resolution  that  it  was  not  privileged,  and  therefore 
not  in  order. 

Mr.  Norris  argued  that  the  resolution  was  privi- 
leged under  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  gives 
to  the  House  the  power  to  determine  its  own  rules  of 
procedure.  He  was  warmly  supported  by  Mr.  Un- 
derwood, and  the  parliamentary  defenders  of  the  or- 
ganization vainly  sought  to  ward  off  the  deadly  blow 
which  was  impending.  Mr.  Dalzell  even  made  the 
specious  argument  that  the  House  was  not  compelled 
to  make  rules  to  carry  on  its  business,  and  cited  the 
fact  that  in  the  Fifty-First  Congress  the  House  for 
a  considerable  time  had  proceeded  without  rules  and 
under  the  ordinary  parliamentary  law.  He  declared 
that  there  was  no  mandatory  command  upon  the 
House  to  make  rules.  The  House  realized,  of  course, 
that  by  its  vote  it  could  make  the  resolution  offered 
by  Mr.  Norris  a  matter  of  the  highest  privilege,  that 
it  had  the  power  to  amend  the  rules. 

The  Republican  insurgents  and  the  "near  insur- 
gents" were  suddenly  confronted  by  an  opportunity 
to  disclose  to  the  country  the  extent  of  their  sincerity. 
They  could  not  avoid  the  issue  presented.  It  was 
sharply  drawn,  and  so  complete  had  been  the  intel- 
lectual awakening  of  the  people  that  the  most  unso- 
phisticated could  grasp  it.  The  liberals  must  either 
stand  by  their  party's  organization,  and  give  a  new 
lease  on  life  to  the  leadership  which  controlled  the 
i  House  under  the  Speaker,  or  they  must  take  a  step 
\toward  the  destruction  of  Republican  solidarity  by 
Forming  a  temporary  coalition  with  the  minority.  The 
reform  which  so  many  Republicans  earnestly  desired 
to  which  so  many  had  pledged  themselves  when 


156        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  question  was  theoretical,  could  be  accomplished 
only  with  Democratic  assistance. 

That  the  Speaker  was  ready  to  sustain  the  point 
of  order  which  had  been  made  nobody  doubted.  The 
only  way  in  which  the  resolution  could  be  adopted  and 
the  Committee  on  Rules  taken  from  the  control  of 
the  Speaker  would  be  for  the  House  to  overrule  the 
decision  of  the  Chair;  and  on  a  point  of  such  vital 
importance  that  would  mean  not  merely  insurrection, 
but  revolution.  The  minority  side  frankly  offered 
their  aid,  and,  indeed,  there  had  been  prior  to  this 
time  many  conferences  between  insurgents  and  Demo- 
cratic leaders  upon  this  very  question. 

Mr.  Champ  Clark,  of  Missouri,  recalled  to  the 
recollection  of  the  House  that  the  occupant  of  the 
Chair  had  repeatedly  stated  that  the  House  had  the 
right  to  elect  a  new  Speaker  whenever  it  pleased,  and 
Mr.  Cannon  replied  that  this  was  undoubtedly  true; 
and  that  it  could  proceed,  if  it  desired,  to  elect  the 
gentleman  from  Missouri  that  very  day,  a  threat,  to 
force  the  liberal  Republicans  into  a  more  advanced 
position  than  most  of  them  were  willing  to  take,  the 
strategy  of  which  was  not  lost  upon  the  more  thought- 
ful of  the  insurgents. 

"I  remember  hearing  the  Speaker  say  one  day," 
said  Mr.  Clark,  "that  this  House  could  pass  an  ele- 
phant through  the  House  if  it  wanted  to,  and  that 
seems  to  me  to  be  'going  some' — to  use  a  slang  phrase. 
.  .  .  Well,  now,  if  we  can  change  the  Speaker, 
why  can  not  we  change  the  rules?  .  .  .  Sup- 
pose that  a  majority  of  the  Members  of  this  House 
had  made  up  their  minds  to  change  these  rules.  How 
are  you  going  to  do  it?  If  it  is  not  a  matter  of  privi- 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  157 

lege  and  you  can  not  get  it  up  that  way,  how  are  you 
going  to  accomplish  it?  Suppose  some  gentleman  here 
offers  an  amendment  to  the  rule  or  a  new  set  of  rules 
or  a  new  rule.  He  puts  it  in  the  basket.  It  is  re- 
ferred to  the  Committee  on  Rules  and  it  might  as  well 
be  referred  to  the  sleepers  in  the  catacombs.  I  violate 
no  secret  when  I  tell  you  the  committee  is  made  up  of 
three  very  distinguished  Republicans  and  two  orna- 
mental Democrats.  They  have  a  majority  of  one,  but 
a  majority  of  one  in  a  committee  of  five  is  as  big 
a  majority  as  a  majority  of  forty-seven  is  in  this 
House,  and  my  own  opinion  is,  both  from  observation 
and  experience,  that  there  never  would  be  a  rule  re- 
ported out  of  that  committee  that  the  Speaker  and  his 
two  Republican  colleagues  do  not  want  reported.  It  is 
an  impossibility  in  nature."* 

The  Republican  organization  quite  clearly  under- 
stood, of  course,  that  the  question  raised  was  not 
merely  one  of  rules,  that  it  involved,  in  effect,  the 
question  of  a  change  in  party  control,  and  a  breaking 
down  of  the  whole  constitutional  plan  of  government 
by  parties.  They  also  quickly  grasped  the  salient  fact 
that  there  was  also  bound  up  in  the  question  the 
immediate  party  necessity,  the  success  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  President  Taft.  Mr.  Taft  was  none  too  se- 
cure in  the  country,  and  much  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  revolt  within  the  House  was  coming  from  with- 
out the  House. 

Insurgents  against  the  power  of  the  speakership 
were  encouraged  by  the  support  they  were  enjoying 
from  public  opinion,  which  was  rapidly  becoming 


* Congressional  Record,   Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3294. 


158        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

highly  organized.  They  brought  their  indictment 
against  the  House  system  in  words  which  vibrated 
throughout  the  nation. 

"All  that  men  prize  here  of  patronage,  of  privi- 
lege, and  of  power,"  said  Mr.  Nelson,  of  Wisconsin, 
"we  have  had  to  forego  for  the  sake  of  principle. 
Have  we  not  been  punished  by  every  means  at  the 
disposal  of  the  powerful  House  organization?  Mem^ 
bers  long  chairmen  of  important  committees,  others 
holding  high  rank — all  with  records  of  faithful  and 
efficient  party  service  to  their  credit — have  been  ruth- 
lessly removed,  deposed,  and  humiliated  before  their 
constituents  and  the  country  because,  forsooth,  they 
would  not  cringe  or  crawl  before  the  arbitrary  power 
of  the  Speaker  and  his  House  machine. 

"Plenty  of  proof  is  at  hand.  Let  me  cite  an  ex- 
ample or  two.  The  distinguished  gentleman  from 
Wisconsin,  Mr.  Cooper,  was  made  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Insular  Affairs  by  Speaker  Henderson 
at  the  urgent  request  of  President  McKinley,  because 
the  Chief  Executive  desired  a  man  at  the  head  of  that 
great  committee  who  would  not  permit  the  exploita- 
tion of  the  Philippine  Islands.  What  was  done  to 
him  by  the  present  Speaker?  What  was  done  to  Mr. 
Fowler,  Mr.  Norris,  Mr.  Haugen,  and  many  others? 
The  Speaker  did  not  hesitate  to  swing  the  headsman's 
ax  nor  the  regulars  to  rejoice  when  an  insurgent's 
head  fell  into  the  basket. 

"The  gentleman  from  New  York,"  he  went  on,  re- 
ferring to  the  defense  of  the  system  which  had  been 
made  by  Mr.  Payne,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Ways  and  Means,  and  the  Floor  Leader  under  Mr. 
Cannon,  who  had  declared  that  the  rules  as  they 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  159 

existed  were  essential  to  the  transaction  of  business 
and  the  protection  of  minority  rights,  "says  we  have 
grievances.  Aye,  we  have,  and  many;  but  the  gentle- 
man does  not  state  that  these  grievances,  arose  after 
we  had  begun  this  fight  on  the  Speaker's  power  and 
for  the  restoration  of  representative  government  in 
the  House.  The  gentleman  well  knows  that  we  are 
not  seeking  self-interest.  We  are  fighting  for  the 
right  of  free,  fair,  and  full  representation  in  this 
body  for  our  respective  constituencies.  The  so-called 
insurgent  Republican  represents  as  good  citizenship  as 
the  regular  does.  The  200,000  or  more  citizens  of 
the  second  district  of  Wisconsin  have  some  rights  of 
representation  here  under  our  Constitution.  But  what 
is  that  right  under  the  despotic  rules  of  this  body? 
Merely  the  privilege  to  approve  the  will  of  a  Repre- 
sentative from  another  state  invested  with  despotic 
power  under  artificial,  unfair,  and  self-made  rules 
of  procedure. 

"We  know,  indeed,  by  bitter  experience  what  rep- 
resentation means  under  these  rules.  It  means  that 
we  must  stand  by  the  Speaker,  right  or  wrong,  or 
suffer  the  fate  that  we  have  endured.  Let  no  one 
accuse  us,  therefore,  of  an  alliance  with  Democracy 
for  unworthy  purposes.  We  are  fighting  with  our 
Democratic  brethren  for  the  common  right  of  j2gual 
represenJaiioji-.in,-thi&-4Iouse,  and  for  the  right  of 
way  of  progressive  legislation  in  Congress;  and  we 
are  going  to  fight  on  at  any  cost  until  these  inesti- 
mable rights  have  been  redeemed  for  the  people." 

The  House  knew  as  it  listened  to  this  merciless 
indictment  of  the  speakership  that  it  was  true.  Mem- 
bers were  there  who  had  been  removed  from  their 


160        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

committee  places,  because  they  had  displeased  the 
organization,  through  the  exercise  of  a  power  which 
had  raised  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Cannon  to  an  un- 
precedented height.  Mr.  Fowler,  of  New  Jersey,  had 
been  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Cur- 
rency in  the  Fifty-Ninth  Congress.  He  was  no 
longer  a  member  of  that  committee.  Mr.  Victor  Mur- 
dock,  of  Kansas,  one  of  the  pioneers  in  insurgency, 
had  been  moved  downward  from  the  fifth  or  sixth 
place  to  the  tenth  or  eleventh  place  on  the  Commit- 
tee of  Post-Offices  and  Post-Roads: 

As  these  and  similar  disclosures  were  made  to  the 
House  Mr.  Cannon,  on  the  defensive,  took  the  floor 
and  in  vigorous  words  which  laid  bare  the  whole 
theory  upon  which  he  governed  the  body  over  which 
he  presided  explained  the  position  of  the  organiza- 
tion and  its  conception  of  party  government. 

"The  appointment  of  the  committees,"  said  the 
Speaker,  "is  made  by  the  Speaker  under  the  rules,  un- 
less the  House  should  otherwise  specially  order.  The 
Speaker  of  the  House  in  the  exercise  of  that  function 
is  responsible  to  the  House  and  to  the  country, 
this  being  a  government  through  parties,  and  the 
Republican  party  has  placed  power  in  the  Speaker 
as  to  the  appointment  of  committees.  I  will  not  en- 
ter upon  the  personal  equation  touching  the  gentle- 
man from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Fowler],  the  gentleman 
from  Kansas  [Mr.  Murdock],  or  the  gentleman  from 
Wisconsin  [Mr.  Cooper].  The  gentleman  from  Wis- 
consin [Mr.  Cooper]  will  recollect  that  the  gentle- 
man from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Fowler]  was  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency  when  the 
emergency  currency  bill  was  pending  in  that  commit- 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  161 

tee.  The  only  way  to  consider  that  bill  in  the  House 
was  to  have  that  committee  make  a  favorable  or  an 
unfavorable  report  upon  it. 

"The  gentleman  will  further  recall  that  the  Re- 
publican side  of  the  House  held  two  caucuses,  and 
the  caucus  by  a  large  majority  expressed  its  wish 
that  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency  should 
report  that  bill  wTEITor  without  favorable  recommenda- 
tion, so  as  to  enable  the  House  to  work  its  will  upon 
it  by  a  majority.  That  committee,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Fowler] , 
a  Republican  chairman,  refused  to  respect  the  ivill  of 
the  Republican  caucus.  That  made  a  foundation  upon 
which  the  Speaker  of  the  House  could  recognize  a 
Member  to  move  to  suspend  the  rules  and  discharge 
the  committee  from  the  consideration  of  the  bill  and 
thus  bring  it  before  the  House,  which  was  done,  and 
a  majority  of  the  House  did  work  its  will  upon  that 
bill.* 

"Subsequently  the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey 
[Mr.  Fowler],  the  gentleman  from  Wisconsin  [Mr. 
Cooper],  the  gentleman  from  Kansas  [Mr.  Murdock], 
and  the  gentleman  from  Nebraska  [Mr.  Norris]  failed 
to  enter  and  abide  by  a  Republican  caucus,  and  this 
being  a  government  through  parties,  for  that,  as  well 
as  for  other  sufficient  reasons,  the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  responsible  to  the  House  and  to  the  country, 
made  the  appointments  with  respect  to  these  gentle- 
men as  he  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  in  the  execu- 
tion of  the  trust  reposed  in  him." 

Speaker  Cannon  thus  enunciated  the  doctrine  that 


* 'Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3321. 


162        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

party  loyalty  was  the  highest  consideration,  that 
members  of  a  party  were  bound  by  the  action  of  the 
party  caucus,  and  could,  and  should,  be  punished  for 
failure  to  abide  by  its  decision.  It  was  not  a  new 
creed,  nor  was  it  repugnant  to  those  believing  in  gov- 
ernment through  parties.  But  Mr.  Cannon  was  not 
wholly  frank,  for  the  facts  are  that  he  had  punished 
men  not  because  they  had  taken  a  stand  in  opposi- 
tion to  an  important  measure  of  party  concern,  for 
others  had  done  this  without  sacrifice  of  their  party 
standing,  but  because  they  had  shown  tendencies  of 
independence  repugnant  to  the  party  theory.  It  was 
not  so  much  that  the  insurgents  had  opposed  bills 
which  the  party  had  determined  to  favor,  as  that  they 
had  aimed  a  blow  at  the  very  heart  of  the  system 
through  which  the  party  exercised  its  will.  The  insur- 
gents denied  in  toto  the  theory  that  a  caucus  majority 
had  authority  to  control  the  vote  of  the  individual 
member  of  the  party  against  his  honest  judgment. 

The  system  of  government  founded  upon  the  strict 
party  principle  did  not  lack  defenders  when  it  was 
thus  put  on  trial,  not  only  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  but 
at  the  bar  of  public  opinion.  Mr.  James  R.  Mann,  of 
Illinois,  one  of  the  lieutenants  of  Speaker  Cannon, 
was  in  some  respects  the  ablest  parliamentarian  in 
the  House,  not  so  much  because  of  his  really  pro- 
found knowledge  of  the  rules  and  precedents  of  the 
House,  as  in  consequence  of  a  peculiar  adroitness  of 
mind  which  enabled  him  to  twist  and  turn  these  rules 
and  precedents  to  fit  his  requirements.  When  his 
knowledge  and  memory  were  challenged  he  was  not 
often  found  in  error,  but  he  possessed  in  addition  an 
audacity  which  permitted  him  to  interpret  the  basic 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  163 

laws  of  the  House  in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  emer- 
gency. His  defense  of  the  organized  despotism  which 
Reed  had  bequeathed  to  Cannon  is  significant  in  view 
of  the  unique  position  which  he  was  to  occupy  in 
the  House  at  a  later  date  under  a  different  regime. 

"On  the  whole,"  said  Mr.  Mann,  "the  rules  of  the 
House  are  probably  the  best  considered,  most  scien- 
tifically constructed  and  finely  adjusted  rules  govern- 
ing any  parliamentary  body  on  earth.  The  proceedings 
in  the  House,  while  sometimes  boisterous,  are  always 
orderly.  No  such  scenes  and  no  such  arbitrary  action 
can  take  place  in  the  House  as  I  have  often  witnessed 
in  the  City  Council  of  Chicago  and  the  legislature 
of  my  state.  But  there  never  has  been  and  there  never 
will  be  any  set  of  rules  devised  by  which  each  one  of 
four  hundred  Members  of  the  House  can  at  any 
time  bring  each  one  of  thirty  thousand  bills  before 
the  House  for  immediate  consideration  and  disposal. 

"It  is  not  true  that  Speaker  Cannon  or  any  other 
Speaker  is  an  autocrat  in  the  House.  It  is  true  that 
the  present  Speaker  is  the  leader  and  strongest  influ- 
ence in  the  House,  and  that  he  has  been  so  for  ten 
years,  dating  back  to  a  time  before  he  was  Speaker 
and  from  the  time  that  Speaker  Reed  left  the  House. 
We  may  some  of  us  revile  him  temporarily.  Great 
men  have  been  abused  at  all  times — such  is  the  history 
of  mankind — but  when  the  book  of  history  of  this 
generation  shall  have  been  written,  together  with  the 
legislation  that  has  been  enacted,  the  years  of  the 
speakership  of  Mr.  Speaker  Cannon  will  stand  out 
among  the  most  brilliant  in  the  history  of  our  country," 
The  debate  up  to  this  point  had  continued  without 
interruption  for  thirteen  and  a  half  hours,  and  con- 


164        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

sidering  the  vital  question  at  issue  must  be  considered 
as  one  of  the  most  important  discussions  which  had 
taken  place  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  its 
entire  history.  Mr.  Cannon  and  the  party  leaders  did 
everything  possible  to  postpone  the  inevitable  decision 
on  the  point  of  order  which  had  been  raised  against 
the  Norris  Resolution,  and  Mr.  Shackleford  charged 
that  the  Speaker  was  seeking  to  "browbeat  and  whip 
in"  enough  to  give  him  a  majority.  Motions  made 
from  the  ranks  of  the  regular  Republicans  for  a  recess 
or  an  adjournment  were  defeated,  and  the  battle  raged 
all  day,  of  the  seventeenth,  all  that  night,  and  into  the 
next  day,  during  a  continuous  session  of  twenty-nine 
hours.  Absent  Members  were  awakened  at  their 
homes,  and  taken  from  their  beds  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  to  make  a  quorum.  Finally  late  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  eighteenth  an  adjournment  was 
secured.  At  a  little  after  noon  on  the  following  day 
Speaker  Cannon  announced  that  he  was  ready  to  rule 
on  the  point  of  order  made  by  Mr.  Dalzell  against  the 
Norris  Resolution,  and  he  did  rule,  sustaining  it.  On 
this  decision  he  was  reversed  by  the  House,  and  the 
mighty  power  of  the  speakership  was  dealt  a  deadly 
i  blow,  from  which  it  was  not  to  recover.  In  thus  rul- 
1  ing  that  the  Norris  Resolution  was  not  privileged  the 
I  Speaker  was  doubtless  parliamentary  correct,  and 
sustained  by  precedents,  but  the  House  was  not  con- 
cerned with  the  fine  points  of  parliamentary  law.  It 
was  confronted  by  an  issue  about  which  there  could  be 
no  quibbling.  On  this  question,  to  sustain  the  decision 
of  the  Chair,  the  ayes  were  162,  and  the  nays  182.  The 
insurgents,  cooperating  with  the  Democratic  party, 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  165 

had  achieved  their  second  victory,  this  time  a  deci- 
sive one. 

This  brought  the  Norris  Resolution  before  the 
House,  and  its  author  offered  a  substitute  for  it  which 
his  associates  had  preferred  to  the  original.  This  pro- 
vided* that  for  the  existing  Committee  on  Rules  of 
five  members,  appointed  by  the  Speaker,  and  of  which 
the  Speaker  was  the  chairman,  there  should  be  elected 
by  the  House  a  Committee  on  Rules  of  ten  members,  of 
whom  six  should  be  members  of  the  majority  and  four 
of  the  minority,  and  of  which  the  Speaker  should  not 
be  a  member.  It  was  provided  that  the  committee 
should  elect  its  own  chairman  from  its  own  members, 
and  that  within  ten  days  after  the  adoption  of  the 
resolution  there  should  be  an  election  of  this  commit- 
tee, whereupon  the  existing  committee  should  be 
dissolved. 

Mr.  Champ  Clark,  of  Missouri,  opened  the  debate 
on  the  resolution  which  then  followed,  and  in  view  of 
the  position  which  afterward  he  came  to  occupy  in  the 
House,  the  conception  of  the  speakership  which  he 
then  stated  as  being  his  own  has  a  peculiar  significance. 

"So  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  said  Mr.  Clark,  "and 
as  far  as  the  men  who  have  cooperated  with  me  are 
concerned,  so  far  as  I  know,  this  is  a  fight  against 
a  system.  We  think  it  is  a  bad  system,  as  far  as  this 
Committee  on  Rules  has  been  concerned.  It  does  not 
make  any  difference  to  me  that  it  is  sanctified  by 
tune.  There  never  has  been  any  progress  in  this  world 
except  to  overthrow  precedents  and  take  new  posi- 


*Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3429. 


166        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tions.  There  never  will  be.  Reformers  and  progres- 
sives are  necessarily  and  inevitably  iconoclasts. 

"I  want  to  say  another  thing,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned. There  is  no  other  proposition  pending  in 
my  mind  on  my  own  initiative  or  by  agreement  with 
anybody  except  the  one  that  is  pending  here  to-day. 
I  have  believed  ever  since  I  was  in  the  House  long 
enough  to  understand  the  work  of  the  Committee  on 
Rules  that  the  fact  that  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
was  chairman  of  that  committee,  and  practically  the 
Committee  on  Rules,  gives  the  Speaker  of  this  House 
more  power  than  any  one  man  ought  to  have  over  the 
destinies  of  this  republic. 

"Macaulay  says  that  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was 
avaricious  of  power.  I  am  not  certain  but  that  the 
illustrious  historian  might  without  exaggeration  have 
extended  that  remark  so  as  to  include  the  entire  human 
race  within  its  scope.  It  is  for  that  very  reason  that 
restrictions,  constitutional  and  otherwise,  are  placed 
upon  public  men — even  upon  hereditary  kings,  em- 
perors and  potentates.  And  every  such  new  restric- 
tion smashes  precedents.  We  had  made  up  our  minds 
months  ago  to  try  to  work  the  particular  revolution 
that  we  are  working  here  to-day,  because,  not  to  mince 
words,  it  is  a  revolution.  I  have  no  fear  of  revolutions, 
for  men  of  our  blood  revolutionize  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. The  enlargement  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  even 
in  itself  has  some  beneficent  features  attached  to  it, 
simply  that  and  nothing  more,  because  it  takes  into 
consideration  .  .  .  the  larger  portion  of  the  coun- 
try. But  I  am  not  giving  my  adhesion  to  any 
proposition  concerning  this  rules  business  that  does 
not  remove  the  Speaker  now,  and,  so  far  as  we  can 
control  it,  for  all  time  to  come,  from  the  Committee 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  167 

on  Rules.  That  is  my  position,  and  in  that  I  speak  for 
the  Democrats  of  the  House  and  the  insurgent  Repub- 
licans. We  are  fighting  to  rehabilitate  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  to  restore  it  to  its  ancient  place 
of  honor  and  prestige  in  our  system  of  government. 

"You  can  not  restore  to  the  membership  of  this 
House  the  quantum  of  power  that  each  Member  is  en- 
titled to  without  taking  from  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
some  quantum  of  the  power  he  now  enjoys,  because  he 
practically  enjoys  it  all.  On  this  proposition  I  could 
wish  that  there  could  be  a  unanimous  vote  of  this 
House,  but  that  is  a  hope  too  fantastic  for  entertain- 
ment. We  want  to  try  this  experiment.  If  it  does 
not  work  well,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  House  at  any  time 
can  change  it,  because  it  has  now  been  definitely  settled 
that  this  House  can  do  what  it  pleases  when  it  wants  to 
do  it." 

The  Norris  Resolution  as  amended  was  adopted,  v 
191  to  156,  and  Mr.  Cannon,  who  thus  suffered  the 
most  severe  defeat  that  had  been  administered  to  a 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  since  the 
establishment  of  the  government,  by  a  shrewd  move 
succeeded  in  softening  the  effect  of  that  blow  at  his 
prestige  in  the  country.  Declaring  that  the  vote  had 
shown  that  there  was  "no  coherent  Republican  ma- 
jority" in  the  House,  and  reasserting  his  belief  in  the 
theory  of  party  government  and  the  principles  of  ma- 
jority rule,  he  announced  that  he  would  entertain  a 
motion  that  the  Chair  be  declared  vacant,  in  order  that 
the  House  might  proceed  to  the  election  of  a  new 
Speaker. 

Such  action  was  no  part  of  the  carefully  prepared 
plans  of  the  Republican  insurgents.  Few  of  them  were 
willing  to  go  so  far  as  the  repudiation  of  the  Republi- 


168        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

can  head  of  the  House.  Many  of  them  had  expressly 
stipulated  that  no  such  step  should  be  taken.  Others 
realized  that  in  the  event  of  a  motion  to  declare  the 
Chair  vacant  being  defeated,  Mr.  Cannon  would  stand 
before  the  country  in  a  very  considerable  degree  vindi- 
cated. Mr.  Norris  at  once  moved  that  the  House  ad- 
journ, but  Mr.  Burleson,  of  Texas,  an  impetuous  man, 
with  a  keen  dramatic  sense,  offered  a  resolution  pro- 
viding that  a  vacancy  in  the  speakership  be  declared, 
and  that  the  House  proceed  at  once  to  the  election  of 
a  Speaker.  Although  Mr.  Sherley,  of  Kentucky,  in- 
sisted that  a  motion  to  adjourn  was  not  debatable  the 
Speaker,  the  House  being  in  the  greatest  confusion, 
with  dozens  of  Members  clamoring  to  be  recognized, 
packing  the  aisles  and  threatening  violence  to  one  an- 
other, entertained  the  motion  of  Mr.  Burleson,  and 
summoning  Mr.  Payne  to  the  Chair,  went  to  the  floor. 
On  the  roll-call  it  was  beaten,  155  to  192.  The  motion 
to  adjourn  which  followed  came  from  Mr.  Payne,  of 
New  York,  the  Republican  Floor  Leader.  Stripped  of 
his  power  as  chairman  of  Rules,  so  soon  as  the  reform 
might  be  put  into  effect,  the  Speaker  nevertheless 
emerged  the  head  of  his  party. 

A  handful  of  Republican  insurgents  voted  to  re- 
move Speaker  Cannon,  and  it  is  interesting  to  trace 
briefly  their  subsequent  careers.  Three  of  them  went 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  Asle  J.  Gronna,  of  North 
Dakota;  Irvine  L.  Lenroot,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Miles 
Poindexter,  of  Washington.  Henry  A.  Cooper,  of  Wis- 
consin, returned  to  the  House,  and  Victor  Murdock 
became  a  national  Progressive  leader  under  Roosevelt, 
and  a  member  of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  under 
President  Wilson. 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  169 

The  House  which  accomplished  this  reform  was  not 
particularly  a  strong  or  brilliant  one,  for  some  of  the 
great  figures  in  both  parties  who  had  given  such  dis- 
tinction to  the  Fifty-Eighth  and  Fifty-Ninth  Con- 
gresses had  passed  away.  Of  the  members  of  both 
parties  who  voted  for  the  Norris  Resolution  fifteen  aft- 
erward went  to  the  United  States  Senate,  Broussard, 
Gronna,  Hardwick,  Hitchcock,  Hughes,  of  New  Jersey, 
James,  of  Kentucky,  Lenroot,  Norris,  Poindexter,  Rans- 
dell,  Robinson,  of  Arkansas,  Sheppard,  Stanley,  Town- 
send  and  Underwood.  Three  became  members  of  the 
Cabinet  under  President  Wilson,  and  one,  Mr.  Cox,  of 
Ohio,  in  1920  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  President. 
Of  the  156  men  of  the  Republican  party  who  voted 
against  the  liberalization  of  the  House  rules  only  three 
reached  the  Senate,  Calder,  of  New  York,  McKinley,  of 
Illinois,  and  Weeks,  of  Massachusetts,  and  two,  Weeks 
and  Denby,  entered  the  Cabinet  of  President  Harding. 
Of  the  others  five  became  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress :  Gillett,  Speaker 
of  the  House ;  Mondell,  Floor  Leader ;  Campbell,  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Rules ;  Madden,  chairman  of 
the  centralized  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and 
Fordney,  chairman  of  Ways  and  Means.  Of  the 
insurgents  and  Democrats  who  went  to  the  Senate,  ten 
yet  remain  there,  while  of  the  others  only  two  are  left. 

During  the  struggle  which  ended  so  disastrously  for 
the  speakership,  whose  power  had  been  developed  al- 
most entirely  by  the  Whig  and  Republican  parties,  Mr. 
Lenroot  had  declared  that  the  adoption  of  the  Norris 
Resolution  would  do  much  to  assure  a  Republican  ma- 
jority in  the  following  Congress.  His  prophecy  did 
not  come  true,  and  the  Democratic  party  was  restored 


to  power  by  the  people.  The  action  of  the  Republicans 
in  weakening  the  power  of  the  speakership  was  de- 
moralizing in  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  and  the 
genius  of  the  party  of  Colfax,  Elaine  and  Reed. 

Since  Clay's  time  the  Whigs  and  Republicans  of 
the  House  had  functioned  efficiently  because  their  ac- 
tions were  predicated  upon  principles  in  which  they 
believed  as  members  of  political  parties.  No  party  can 
be  false  to  its  own  creed  without  loss  of  efficiency. 
Power  is  the  natural  complement  of  responsibility,  and 
the  sense  of  responsibility  is  impaired  by  curtailment 
power.  For  a  hundred  years  the  House  in  response  to 
the  dictates  of  its  conscience  had  sought  to  preserve 
itself  through  the  healthy  exercise  of  its  constitutional 
functions.  The  deliberate  weakening  of  those  func- 
tions reacted  with-  powerful  psychological  effect,  the 
most  important  manifestation  being  a  lack  of  con- 
fidence. 

The  Republican  House  lost  faith  in  itself  when  it 
took  the  first  step  toward  the  destruction  of  the  second 
office  under  the  government,  an  office  whose  powers  it 
had  nurtured  and  developed  from  the  germ  of  repre- 
sentative democracy  which  the  founders  of  the  repub- 
lic had  received  from  the  liberty-loving  assemblies  of 
the  Colonies,  and  which  they  had  implanted  in  the  Con- 
stitution. The  act  weakening  the  power  of  the  Speaker 
was  an  act  of  political  unfaithfulness.  It  was  as 
though  the  Catholic  Church  had  abolished  the  College 
of  Cardinals  and  elected  a  Methodist  Pope. 

The  strong  House  had  abdicated,  as  though  to  make 
way  for  the  strong  President. 

The  Committee  on  Rules  at  this  time,  in  addition 
to  Speaker  Cannon,  the  chairman,  was  composed  of  Mr. 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1910  171 

Dalzell,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Walter  I.  Smith,  of 
Iowa,  Republicans ;  and  Mr.  Champ  Clark,  of  Missouri, 
and  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  of  New  York,  representing  the 
minority.  Mr.  Dalzell  was  one  of  the  strongest  men  in 
the  Republican  organization,  and  was  quite  as  much 
a  part  of  the  system  against  which  the  insurgents  had 
launched  their  attack  as  was  Mr.  Cannon  himself. 
The  reform  with  respect  to  the  Rules  Committee  hav- 
ing been  accomplished,  however,  the  Republican  cau- 
cus meeting  to  elect  the  six  majority  members  of  the 
new  committee  provided  for  by  the  Norris  Resolution, 
selected,  in  the  order  named,  Mr.  Dalzell,  Mr.  Smith, 
of  Iowa;  Mr.  Boutell,  of  Illinois;  Mr.  Lawrence,  of 
Massachusetts;  Mr.  Fassett,  of  New  York;  and  Mr. 
Sylvester  C.  Smith,  of  California;  while  the  Demo- 
cratic caucus  added  to  Mr.  Champ  Clark  and  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald, of  New  York,  who  were  already  minority  mem- 
bers of  the  committee,  Mr.  Dixon,  of  Indiana,  and  Mr. 
Underwood,  of  Alabama,  the  latter  being  next  in  rank 
to  Mr.  Clark  under  the  new  arrangement,  and  Mr. 
Dixon  third.*  Of  this  Committee  on  Rules  of  ten  Mr. 
Dalzell,  Cannon's  trusted  lieutenant,  became  the  chair- 
man. The  Speaker's  organization  succeeded  in  con- 
siderable measure  in  "saving  its  face,"  but  its  grip 
upon  the  House  was  none  the  less  effectually  broken 
for  all  that.  Five  days  after  the  Norris  Resolution 
had  been  adopted  the  Speaker  announced  to  the  House 
a  number  of  important  assignments  to  committees 
which  he  had  made.  The  power  to  appoint  committees 
was  to  remain  for  a  time  as  one  of  the  prerogatives 
of  the  Chair,  but  not  for  long. 


* Congressional  Record,  Sixty-First  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  3759. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP 

\ 

CHAMP  CLARK,  of  Missouri,  came  to  the  speakerW 
ship  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sixty-Second  Congress 
pledged  to  parliamentary  reform.  Upon  that  issue  al- 
though not  that  alone  his  party  had  made  the  campaign 
which  led  to  the  election  of  a  Democratic  House  in 
1910,  and  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  larger  meas- 
ure of  success  two  years  later.  The  Denver  platform 
of  1908  had  specifically  committed  the  party  to  such  a 
revision  of  the  rules  of  the  House  as  should  deprive  the 
Speaker  of  his  power.  Moreover,  in  the  preceding  Con- 
gress Mr.  Clark  had  publicly  taken  a  position  on  the 
subject  such  as  to  have  made  him  the  exponent  of  the 
new  idea  on  his  side  of  the  aisle. 

The  coalition  of  the  Democrats  and  the  insurgents 
of  the  Republican  party  which  had  made  the  revolution 
of  1910  possible  had  not  been  without  its  embarrassing 
possibilities.  While  the  Democratic  leaders,  both  for 
reasons  of  strategy  and  from  conviction,  favored  the 
promotion  of  schism  in  the  ranks  of  the  majority,  and 
the  liberalization  of  the  rules  through  which  a  minority 
influence  might  the  more  readily  be  exerted,  there  was 
a  point  beyond  which  they  could  not  go  in  working 
with  the  Republican  reformers.  They  kept  constantly 
in  mind  the  paramount  importance  of  preserving  the 
integrity  of  their  party,  and  hence  were  not  prepared 
at  any  timeT;o  make  such  a  bargain  with  the  progres- 

172 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     173 

sives  as  might  require  the  sacrifice  of  political  soli- 
darityjDnjtheir  part. 

When  insurgency  had  reached  such  a  point  that 
the  overthrow  of  the  speakership  had  become  a  mathe- 
matical possibility  by  a  combination  of  insurgent  and 
Democratic  votes,  conferences  were  held  in  order  that 
plans  and  details  might  be  agreed  upon.  The  Demo- 
crats consented  to  assist  in  the  enterprise  directed 
against  the  powerful  Republican  oligarchy,  to  whose 
destruction  their  party  in  national  convention  was  al- 
ready pledged.  A  satisfactory  understanding  was 
reached  with  respect  to  the  removal  of  the  Speaker 
from  the  Committee  on  Rules,  but  the  probability  of 
this  action  necessitating  the  reorganization  of  the 
House  presented  difficulties  not  easily  to  be  solved. 
The  Democrats  were  determine  J  not  to  assist  in  the 
election  of  an  insurgent  Speaker,  and,  as  subsequent 
events  disclosed,  the  progressives  were  not  willing  to 
go  to  the  extent  of  electing  Mr.  Clark,  the  minority 
leader,  as  the  successor  of  Mr.  Speaker  Cannon.  Per- 
ceiving the  embarrassment  that  he  could  cause  to  the 
insurgents  of  his  own  party  Mr.  Cannon  desired  to 
resign  the  speakership  when  the  House  had  shorn 
him  of  the  great  attribute  of  his  power,  and  only  the 
earnest  pleadings-of  the  regular  leaders  prevented  him 
from  doing  so.  The  defeat  of  the  Burleson  Resolution 
declaring  the  Chair  vacant  gave  to  him  a  substantial 
vindication,  and  subjected  the  insurgents  to  the  charge 
of  insincerity. 

The  Democrats  profited  politically  in  the  campaign 
of  that  year,  and  came  into  power  in  the  House  pledged 
by  the  platform  of  1908  to  the  adoption  of  "such  rules 
and  regulations  to  govern  the  House  of  Representa- 


174       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tives  as  will  enable  a  majority  of  its  members  to  direct 
its  deliberations  and  control  legislation."  The  oppor- 
tunity to  carry  out  these  promises,  which  implied  a 
thorough  and  radical  housecleaning,  came  within  little 
more  than  a  year  after  the  revolution  of  March  19, 
1910. 

in  the  Sixty-First  Congress  Mr.  Taft  had  proposed 
the  enactment  of  a  law  providing  for  Canadian  reci- 
procity. So  long  a  time  as  this  had  been  required  for 
the  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  McKinley's  Buffalo 
speech !  Roosevelt  was  not  permitted  to  become  a  tariff 
reformer,  and  the  protected  interests  of  the  country 
had  been  powerful  enough  in  Congress  to  prevent 
any  meddling  with  the  work  which  Dingley  had  done 
so  well  for  them.  A  bill  was  finally  passed  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  but  not  by  the  Senate,  and 
when  the  established  order  in  the  lower  body  had 
been  overthrown  by  the  elections  of  1910,  Mr.  Taft 
held  a  conference  with  certain  of  the  Democratic 
leaders,  and  frankly  asked  whether,  in  the  event  he 
called  an  extra  session  of  Congress,  they  would  pass 
the  Canadian  Reciprocity  Bill.  This  they  agreed  to 
do,  and  the  Sixty-Second  Congress  met  in  special  ses- 
sion on  April  4,  1911. 

There  had  been  meetings  of  Democratic  Members- 
Elect  to  the  Sixty-Second  Congress  in  advance  of  this 
date,  and  agreements  were  reached  that  Mr.  Clark 
should  be  elected  Speaker  and  that  a  Floor  Leader 
should  be  chosen.  Mr.  Oscar  W.  Underwood,  of  Ala- 
bama, the  second  man  among  the  Democrats  on  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee,  Mr.  Clark  having  been 
first  in  the  previous  Congress,  was  decided  upon  for 
this  post,  arid  it  was  also  determined  that  he  should 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     175 

be  advanced  to  the  chairmanship  of  Ways  and  Means. 
He  was  selected  as  the  majority  Floor  Leader  of  the 
new  House  first,  and  ostensibly  independently  of  his 
prospective  chairmanship. 

These  decisions  were  confirmed,  in  the  Democratic 
caucus,  which  also  elected  the  other  Democratic  mem- 
bers of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  and  authorized 
that  committee  to  organize  the  House.  It  was  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives that  the  "power  to  appoint  the  standing  com- 
mittees of  the  House  had  been  taken  from  the  Speaker, 
and  marked,  therefore,  the  most  radical  reform  that 
had  yet  been  attempted  inthgt  body. 

Nevertheless  it  was  recognized  by  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  House  that  in  such  an  assembly  responsi- 
bility must  be  accompanied  by  power,  and  so  'the  au- 
thority to  name  the_committees  of  the  House  when 
taken  from  the  Speaker  was  lodged  theoretically  in  the 
most  important  committee  of  the  House,  but  actually 
in  the  chairmaji_jajLthat  committee.  The  Ways  and 
Means  Committee  appointed  the  Committee  on  Rules,* 
and  the  caucus  adopted  a  resolution  that  no  man  should 
serve  on  more  than_jpjie.J)l-Jlie^ojurteen  major  com- 
mittees. Thus  no  niembers  of  Ways  and  Means  were 
actually  on  Rules,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  members 
of  the  latter  were  carefully  selected  because  of  their 
known  and  proved  sympathy  with  Democratic  prin- 
ciples and  policies,  and  for  their  loyalty  to  the  party. 

Not  only  was  the  power  of  the  Speaker  to  name 
the  committees  of  the  House  and  their  chairmen  denied 


*The  new  Rules  Committee,  which  had  been  given  a  mem- 
bership of  ten  by  the  Norris  Resolution,  was  increased,  in  the 
Sixty-Second  Congress,  to  eleven,  and  was  subsequently  in- 
creased to  twelve  by  the  Republicans, 


176        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

for  the  first  time  since  1790,  but  the  concentration  of  a 
large  part  of  the  power  of  the  speakership  in  the  hands 
of  the  man  who  was,  at  once,  both  the  majority  Floor 
Leader,  and  the  chairman  of  the  most  important  com- 
mittee, marked  the  initial  appearance  of  a  new  idea 
of  government  in  the  established  American  system, 
a  system  which  had  been,  up  to  this  time,  essentially 
the  same  in  both  the  political  parties  which  had,  in  one 
form  or  another,  controlled  the  legislative  branch  of 
the  government  for  more  than  a  century.  This,  was  the 
European  idea  of  a  parliamentary  minister  responsible 
to  his  party  for  the  successful  prosecution  of  the 
party's  program. 

There  were  Democrats  in  the  House  who  assisted  in 
the  reorganization  of  1911,  who  deliberately  and  with 
a  definite  purpose  sought  the  introduction  of  the  Euro- 
pean principle.  Of  course  the  idea  was  greatly  modi- 
fied. The  head  of  the  party  in  the  House  was  to  hold  no 
position  in  the  Cabinet,  was  to  be  in  no  sense  a  part 
of  the  executive  branch  of  the  government.  Not  only 
was  the  legislative  function  to  be  preserved  wholly 
separate  and  distinct  from  the  executive  function ;  but 
actually  it  was  accentuated,  until  the  war  arrested  the 
tendency. 

Nevertheless  Mr.  Underwood  took  his  place  on  the 
floor  of  the  Sixty-Second  Congress  in  a  role  new  to 
the  long-established  American  precedents.  Heretofore 
the  Speaker  had  been  the  head  of  the  House.  For  the 
first  time  the  leader  of  the  House  was  not  at  the 
rostrum,  but  was  on  the  floor.  Under  the  old  regime 
the  Speaker  might  lose  control  of  the  House,  but  he 
would  still  remain  Speaker.  Under  the  new  system  Mr. 
Underwood  owed  his  place  continuously  to  the  success 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     177 

with  which  he  managed  the  party's  affairs  from  the 
floor.  If  he  had  lost  control  of  the  House  he  would 
have  resigned,  and  the  caucus  would  have  been  con- 
fronted by  the  necessity  of  electing  a  new  Floor  Leader, 
and  this  would  have  carried  with  it  the  necessity  of 
electing  a  new  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  the 
committee  charged  by  the  caucus  with  the  responsi- 
bility for  organizing  the  House.  Obviously,  under  such 
a  condition,  the  House  would  have  to  be  organized 
anew  in  such  a  manner  as  to  support  the  committee. 

It  so  happened  that  Mr.  Underwood  never  lost  con- 
trol of  the  House  during  the  period  he  remained  at  the 
head  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  as  the  actual 
leader  of  the  House,  until  he  went  to  the  Senate  in 
1915;  but  it  can  not  be  doubted  that,  in  the  present 
volatile  state  of  American  political  opinion,  a  situation 
eventually  will  arise  in  the  House  in  consequence  of 
which  a  Democratic  Floor  Leader  will  lose  control  of 
the  House  on  a-  bill  involving  principle  and  party.  It 
will  then  be  seen  that  what  was  attempted  as  an  experi- 
ment and  an  expedient  in  1911  has  introduced  some- 
thing quite  radical  into  the  American  parliamentary 
system. 

xThe  Democratic  party  carried  out  its  reforms  in 
the  House  in  the  Sixty-Second  Congress  with  boldness 
and  courage,  in  view  of  the  extreme  progressivism  of 
American  sentiment  at  that  time.  The  great  liberal 
movement  had  not  reached  its  height,  and  the  Demo- 
cratic party  was  plainly  dominated  by  a  forward- 
looking  element.  Nevertheless  the  annihilation  of  the 
speakership  was  not  permitted  to  include  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  power  in  the  House.  Mr.  Underwood's  leader- 
ship was  of  such  a  character  that  the  policies  of  his 


party  were  carried  out  with  firmness,  and  without 
wavering-  on  the  part  of  the  rank  and  file.  The  Under- 
wood Tariff  Act  was  put  upon  its  passage  without  a 
"gag"  rule  to  speed  it  on  its  way.  This  extreme  action 
was  avoided,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  tariff 
making-  since  the  drastic  rules  limiting  debate  and  the 
right  of  amendment  had  come  into  vogue  in  the  House. 
The  party  moved  forward  steadily  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  its  purposes. 

When  Mr.  Wilson  became  President  the  leadership 
of  the  party  was  to  be  found  in  the  White  House,  but 
not  to  the  extent  under  Mr.  Underwood  that  afterward 
became  true,  due  to  conditions  growing-  out  of  the  war 
so  unusual  as  to  disturb  the  calculations  of  the  political 
philosopher.  Mr.  Underwood,  during  his  brief  term  at 
the  head  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  was  the 
first  Democratic  leader  of  major  significance  which 
the  party  had  had  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
since  Samuel  J.  Randall.  Behind  him  the  party  func- 
tioned with  admirable  precision. 

This  was  largely  because  the  Democratic  party, 
with  engaging  candor  and  a  lack  of  that  weakness 
which  afterward,  for  a  time,  came  to  characterize  the 
Republican  House,  preserved  in  all  substantial  respects 
the  traditional  caucus,  an  institution  which  had  grown 
up  with  the  American  party  system. 
-/A  considerable  part  of  the  rebellion  against  the 
oligarchy  of  Speaker  Cannon  had  grown  out  of  insur- 
gent Republican  hostility  to  the  caucus.  So  far  as  the 
Republican  party  was  concerned  the  progressive  move- 
ment obliterated  the  binding  caucus,  and  achieving  this 
victory,  the  liberals  of  the  Republican  side  considered 
that  they  had  scored  one  of  the  greatest  gains  toward 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     179 

the  freeing  of  parliamentary  procedure  from  the  domi- 
nation of  the  power  of  organized  leadership. 

The  Democratic  party  had  embraced  progressivism, 
had  profited  by  it  in  the  elections  of  1910,  and  had 
carried  out  campaign  promises  to  the  extent  of  reduc- 
ing the  Speaker  of  the  House  to  a  mere  moder- 
ator. But  it  preserved  the  caucus,  the  binding  caucus, 
whose  mandates  could  not  be  ignored  by  any  man  who 
hoped  to  remain  within  the  party  fold.  The  caucus 
determined  policies,  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  and  when  a 
majority  of  that  size  had  placed  the  stamp  of  party 
approval  upon  a  measure,  the  minority  was  under  sol- 
emn party  obligation  to  support  that  measure,  except 
in  the  most  exceptional  circumstances.  Those  who  could 
not  subscribe  to  the  system  would  have  to  go.  Demo- 
cratic discipline  thus  kept  the  party  intact  behind  the 
leadership. 

The  preservation  of  the  binding  caucus  by  the  Dem- 
ocratic party,  at  a  time  when  the  Republican  party, 
which  had  risen  to  greatness  partly  through  its  in- 
strumentality, was  abandoning  it,  was  due  to  funda- 
mental causes  lying  at  the  very  roots  of  the  difference 
between  the  two  great  political  parties.  The  Demo- 
cratic party,  although  a  truly  national  party  in  a  sense 
in  which  the  Republican  party  has  never  been  a  na- 
tional  party,  is  also  a  sectional  party.  It  stands  for 
and  represents  "the  Solid  South."  Whatever  the  con- 
ditions may  be  elsewhere  in  the  Union,  they  are  always 
favorable  to  the  Democratic  party  below  the  Potomac 
and  Ohio  Rivers.  However  low  the  party  fortunes  may 
be  elsewhere,  from  the  South  there  invariably  sits  in 
the  House  a  permanent  force.  This  element  naturally 
comes  to  possess  a  power  peculiar  to  itself.  It  is  im- 


pervious  to  those  demoralizing  influences  which  other 
parties  may  encounter  and  to  which  they  may  suc- 
cumb, since  the  Democratic  party  in  the  South  rests 
upon  a  social  idea  as  well  as  upon  a  political  idea. 
Under  the  two-thirds  rule  which  applies  in  the  national 
conventions  of  that  party,  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  South  can  always  exercise  the  power  of  veto  when 
it  can  not  dictate.  The  same  rule  was  preserved  in 
the  Democratic  caucus.  Its  sway  is  absolute.  Through 
its  instrumentality  a  two-thirds  majority  can  carry 
out  its  will  without  hindrance,  and  the  South  is  always 
protected.  Hence  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Under- 
wood there  was  a  thoroughly  organized  party  in  the 
Sixty-Second  Congress. 

Of  the  fifty-six  standing  committees  in  this  Con- 
gress thirty-nine  of  them  had  chairmen  from  southern 
states,  and  the  most  conspicuous  northern  man  in 
the  House  was  Mr.  John  J.  Fitzgerald,  of  New  York. 
The  seniority  system  had  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
powerful  Committee  qn^  Appropriations,  but  the  same 
system  had  elevated  southern  men  to  most  of  the  other 
posts  of  major  responsibility.  Southern  influence  pre- 
dominated in  the  organization  of  the  House,  and  south- 
ern influence  meant  the  preservation  of  institutions 
such  as  the  caucus  which  rested  upon  basic  southern 
tradition.  Of  the  seven  Democratic  members  of  the 
new  Committee  on  Rules  _the  South  contributed  five. 
/This  Committee,  which  had  been  carefully  selected, 
was  placed  in  charge  of  the  administration  of  thejrules 
which  the  Democratic  party  proceeded  to  adopt  in  the 
most  radical  revision  which  had  occurred  in  many 
years.  The  new  rules  were  founded  theoretically  not 
upon  the  rules  of  the  preceding  Republican  Congress, 
but  upon  the  rules  of  the  Fifty-Third  Congress,  over 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     181 

which  Mr.  Speaker  Crisp  had  presided.  Mr.  Clark,  of 
Missouri,  having  been  chosen  Speaker  by  a  vote  of  220 
to  131  for  Mr.  Mann,  of  Illinois,  in  an  election  in  which 
seventeen  Republican  insurgents  had  refused  to  vote 
for  the  candidate  of  their  party,  the  House  proceeded 
to  the  adoption  of  the  new  rules  presented  by  Mr. 
Henry,  of  Texas,  who  was  to  be  the  new  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Rules.* 

They  were  substantially  like  the  rules  of  the  preced- 
ing Congress,  except  in  certain  important  particulars, 
and  it  was  in  these  that  the  power  of  the  speakership 
was  finally  demolished  and  upon  the  wreckage  of  its 
ruined  grandeurs  the  liberalization  of  the  House  estab- 
lishedXThe  rules  took  from  the  Speaker  the  right  to 
I  name  the  standing  committees  of  the  House,  and  ex- 
1  pressly  stipulated  that  they  should  be  "elected  by  the 
House,  at  the  commencement  of  each  Congress" ;  they 
increased  the  membership  of  the  Rules  Committee  to 
eleven,  and  provided  that  the  Speaker  should  not  be  a 
member  of  that  committee,  of  which,  under  the  old 
system,  he  had  been  the  chairman ;  they  provided  that 
the  chairmen  of  committees  should  be  elected  by  the 
\House,    and    not,    as    previously,    appointed    by    the 
'Speaker  as  a  part  of  his  privilege  to  reward  and  punish 
in  the  maintenance  of  discipline ;  Calendar  Wednesday 
iwas  preserved  and  fortified,  and  theoretically  every 
[committee  of  the  House  was  given  an  opportunity  to 
call  up  legislation  reported  by  it  without  going  to  the 
Committee  on  Rules  for  a  special  rule. 

The  Speaker's  power  of  recognition  was  all  that 
was  left  to  him.   That,  too,  was  much  impaired.    From 


* 'Congressional  Record,   Sixty-Second   Congress,  first  ses- 
sion, part  1,  p.  10. 


182        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  time  of  its  origin,  in  the  rules  of  1789,  it  had 
been  gradually  extended  and  broadened,  and  both  Reed 
and  Cannon  had  employed  it  to  the  aggrandizement  of 
their  office.  The  rule  itself  has  not  been  changed  since 
the  revision  of  1880,  but  Mr.  Speaker  Clark  did  not 
use  it,  except  during  the  war,  when  all  ordinary  condi- 
tions in  the  House  from  time  to  time  were  set  aside  by 
the  exigencies  arising  from  the  necessities  of  enacting 
legislation  in  the  interest  of  the  national  defense.  Then 
it  was  used  by  the  general  acquiescence  of  the  House. 
Calendar  Wednesday  had  destroyed  much  of  the  use- 
fulness of  recognition  as  the  strong  Republican 
Speakers  had  used  it. 

The  revision  of  the  rules  of  1911  also  preserved  the 
unanimous  consent  calendar,  another  progressive  inno- 
vation in  the  procedure  of  the  House,  which  had  been 
established  March  15,  1909.  By  this  rule  two  days 
a  month  were  set  aside  for  the  consideration  of  bills 
of  minor  general  significance,  but  of  very  great  im- 
portance to  individual  Members,  which  came  up  for 
consideration  by  unanimous  consent,  without  the  Mem- 
ber gaining  the  recognition  of  the  Chair.  Since  its 
establishment  the  Speaker  has  felt  himself  precluded 
from  recognizing  Members  for  the  purpose  of  asking 
unanimous  consent.  This  rule,  as  strengthened  by  pre- 
cedent, has  had  the  effect  of  practically  stopping  the 
practise  of  passing  laws  by  unanimous  consent,  except 
on  days  set  aside  by  the  rules. 

When  the  rules  born  of  progressivlsm  had  been 
adopted  by  the  House  the  power  of  the  speakership 
was  at  an  end.  That  power  had  rested  on  the  right 
of  recognition ;  the  power  to  appoint  all  standing  com- 
mittees and  to  name  their  chairmen ;  and  the  chairman- 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP    183 

ship  of  the  Committee  on  Rules.   When,  in  the  Sixty- 
Fourth  Congress,  the  Calendar  Wednesday  rule  was 
amended  to  provide  that  not  more  than  two  hours  of 
general  debate  should  be  permitted  on  any  measure 
called  up  on  Calendar  Wednesday,  and  that  one  com- 
mittee could  not  use  more  than  two  successive  Calendar 
Wednesdays,  the  Democratic  party  had  put  some  addi-      / 
tional  teeth  in  the  progressive  reform  of  1909.    The  v 
House  of  Representatives  had  become  its  own  master. 

The  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Sixty-Second 
Congress  took  up  the  duties  of  legislative  government 
at  a  time  when  the  majority  was  flushed  with  victory. 
The  Democratic  party  was  united,  the  Republican 
party  divided.  The  rules  which  the  Republicans  were 
afterward  to  embrace  were  put  through  originally  by 
their  opponents  under  a  procedure  which  allowed  only 
limited  debate  and  no  opportunity  for  amendment.  The 
reforms  which  the  country  had  demanded  were  accom- 
plished through  the  employment  of  methods  which  in 
the  past  had  been  repugnant  to  both  Democrats  and 
liberal  Republicans.  Coming  suddenly  into  responsi- 
bilities the  Democratic  party,  in  the  first  organization 
of  the  House  which  they  had  been,  permitted  to  make  in 
sixteen  years,  realized  that  with  those  responsibilities 
there  must  be  power.  So.  far  as  practicable  the  House 
was  organized  with  that  in  mind. 

In  the  Sixty-Third  Congress,  when  Mr.  Wilson  had 
become  President,  a  very  great  burden  of  labor  fell 
upon  the  Democratic  leader  in  the  House,  and  Mr. 
Underwood  found  himself  the  head  of  a  system  which 
imposed  upon  him  such  tasks  as  almost  to  destroy  his 
health.  He  was  obliged  to  organize  the  House  by 
supervising  the  work  of  creating  the  committees,  theo- 


184        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

retically  the  duty  of  the  Committee  on  Ways  and 
Means,  but  one  which  naturally  and  inevitably  devolved 
in  large  measure  upon  the  chairman;  to  serve  as  the 
Floor  Leader  of  his  party  in  conformity  with  a  prin- 
ciple which  gave  a  new  aspect  to  that  leadership ;  and 
to  frame  and  secure  the  enactment  of  an  important  bill 
making  radical  revision  of  the  tariff. 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  an  exponent  of  the  theory 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  the  leader 
of  his  party.  The  extraordinary  situation  presented  by 
the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  World  War 
on  the  side  of  the  Allies  afforded  unusual  opportunities 
for  the  development  of  that  idea.  Under  conditions 
so  conducive  to  the  abnegation  of  legislative  rights  that 
Republican  Members  of  recognized  intellectual  inde- 
pendence were  not  ashamed  to  proclaim  themselves  to 
be  "Rubber  Stamp"  Congressmen  in  their  support  of 
the  Executive,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  Members 
of  the  President's  own  party  should  have  sought  in  him 
the  strong  leadership  they  no  longer  found  in  the 
Speaker. 

Yet  this  was  not  the  tendency  at  the  beginning. 
President  Wilson's  election  had  established  him  as  the 
first  successful  national  leader  of  the  Democratic  party 
since  Grover  Cleveland.  He  came  to  his  high  office  a 
statesman  in  practise  as  well  as  in  theory.  He  was 
endowed  with  nearly  all  of  the  qualities  inherent  in 
leadership.  He  attained  his  ends  through  the  processes 
of  intellect,  and  at  the  same  time  could  be  as  practical 
in  his  operations  as  any  ward  boss.  There  was  about 
him  a  certain  psychic  aloofness  which  threw  about  him 
the  halo  of  mystery.  From  time  to  time  he  appeared 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP     185 

before  Congress  in  person  and  baffled  his  audience  by 
the  impenetrability  of  his  genius.  Having  bestowed 
upon  his  fellow  countrymen  the  boundless  benefits  of 
his  inexhaustible  wisdom  he  retired,  leaving  Congress 
to  perform  its  functions  under  the  Constitution  with- 
out further  advice  or  assistance,  and  the  next  day  a 
mild-mannered  Democrat  in  Senate  or  House  would 
drop  into  the  basket  a  bill  to  which  he  had  hurriedly 
affixed  his  name,  but  which  he  had  never  seen  until  it 
had  been  handed  to  him  neatly  typed,  at  the  other  end 
of  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Nevertheless,  in  the  pre- 
war period  the  House  did  not  surrender  its  soul  into 
his  keeping. 

Under  the  new  system  which  the  Democratic  party 
had  devised  for  the  government  of  the  House,  the  Ways 
and  Means  Committee  became,  in  effect,  the  policy  com- 
mittee of  the  party.  This  was  necessarily  so  because 
the  real  leader  of  the  party  in  the  House  stood  at  its 
head.  Mr.  Underwood  naturally  consulted  with  his 
associates  of  high  degree.  The  place  which  Speaker 
Clark  helcTm  the  hearts  and  minds  of  all  Democratic 
Members  of  the  House  gave  him  a  considerable,  if  a 
wholly  unofficial,  influence  in  the  party  councils.  The 
things  he  said,  and  the  thoughts  which  he  expressed,  in 
the  private  conversations  of  leaders,  carried  much 
weight,  but  Mr.  Underwood,  on  whom  the  responsibil- 
ity rested  under  the  new  semi-ministerial  system,  was 
not  content  either  to  have  his  policies  determined  for 
him  in  the  White  House  or  to  shape  them  in  a  small 
committee.  He  took  nearly  everything  to  the  ^caucus, 
there  were  thorough  discussions,  policies  were  thrashed 
out  and  programs  agreed  upon,  and  then,  with  the 


186       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

party  bound  by  the  two-thirds  rule  of  the  caucus,  the 
measures  were  taken  into  the  House,  and  put  through 
to  final  enactment  without  mishap. 

President  Wilson  took  the  greatest  interest  in  legis- 
lation, as  the  head  of  a  party  come  back  to  power  after 
a  long,  long  absence  from  the  seats  of  government, 
but  in  the  beginning  he  was  no  dictator.  There  were 
no  White  House  drafts  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  or 
the  Underwood  Tariff  Act.  The  Democratic  House, 
composed  of  leaders  from  the  South,  and  a  few  from 
New  York,  Ohio  and  Illinois,  who  had  been  there  for 
many  years,  and  were  seasoned  by  long  experience  as 
members  of  the  minority,  was  thoroughly  competent. 
The  Democratic  party  was  elated  and  united,  the  Re- 
publican party  dejected  and  split  asunder. 

As  the  war  clouds  gathered  and  the  business  of  the 
American  people  passed  more  and  more  into  the  keep- 
ing of  the  Executive,  in  consequence  of  his  constitu- 
tional powers  with  respect  to  international  affairs,  and 
as  the  nation  girded  up  its  loins  for  battle  to  the  death, 
and  more  and  more  a  concentration  of  authority  in  the 
hands  of  the  President  came  to  be  regarded  as  essential 
to  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  enterprise  over  seas, 
the  majesty  of  Congress  declined. 

President  Wilson  came  eventually  to  transact  his 
business  with  the  heads  of  committees  in  the  House, 
and  the  solidarity  of  leadership  having  been  broken 
up,  it  was  possible  for  him,  in  the  middle  part  of  his 
administration,  to  assume  an  awe-inspiring  stature 
compared  with  the  pygmies  on  Capitol  Hill  who,  having 
no  strong  leader  of  their  own,  permitted  the  usurpa- 
tion of  power  to  go  on.  The  White  House  obscured 
the  Capitol.  Statesmen  of  both  parties  responsible  for 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  SPEAKERSHIP    187 

making  the  laws  dared  not  raise  their  voices  against 
the  encroachments  of  the  invisible  Mind  which  in  deep 
seclusion  abode  away  from  all  human  contact  and  ran 
the  war  on  intellect.  Senators  of  sovereign  states,  and 
leaders  of  parties,  groveled  in  their  marble  corridors, 
so  terrified  were  they  of  public  opinion.  The  Presi- 
dent followed  thq  people  shrewdly  enough  to  make  it 
appear  that  he  led  them,  and  backed  as  he  seemed  to 
be  by  this  force  Congress  shivered  in  his  psychic  pres- 
ence. For  days  and  weeks  the  heads  of  great  agencies 
of  the  government  which  were  charged  with  the  actual 
conduct  of  the  war  never  saw  their  superior,  for  coun- 
sel or  consultation.  T^he  White  House  gates  were  closed. 
Impenetrable  mystery  enveloped  the  strange  Being 
upon  whose  unfathomable  mental  processes  depended 
the  hopes  of  millions  and  the  fate  of  civilization. 
Naturally,  the  reaction  was  tremendous. 


CHAPTER  XII 

INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  IN  WASHINGTON 

THE  election  of  a  Republican  Congress  in  1918  con- 
fronted that  party  with  new  problems  and  obligations. 
It  was  without  leadership  in  the  House ^^Representa- 
tives, where  TFoFeight  years  the  Democrats  had  been 
in  power  under  the  supereminent  influence  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson. 

Effective  Republican  leadership  existed  only  in  the 
Senate,  where  Mr.  .Lodge  in  an  adroit  manner  held  to- 
gether the  elements  of  his  party,  possessing  a  majority 
practically  of  only  one,  by  a  series  of  maneuvers  which 
succeeded  in  maintaining  solidarity  in  the  face  of  diffi- 
culties presented  by  the  fact  that  the  opinions  of  in- 
dividual Senators  varied  greatly.  In  consequence  of 
the  importance  of  the  international  issue  growing  out 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  participation  in  the  settlement  of  the 
European  War,  the  Senate  being  with  the  President, 
under  the  Constitution,  the  treaty-making  power,  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  responsibility  for  shaping  na- 
tional jtepubjican.  .policy  on  that  issue  should  devolve 
^upon  Repjublican  Senators. 

During  the  long  fight  over  the  proposed  ratification 
of  the  Versailles  Treaty  the  attention  of  the  country 
was  concentrated  upon  the  Senate,  many  of  whose 
members,  of  both  parties,  but  particularly  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  who  had  been  little  known  before,  came 
into  national  prominence.  The  nomination,  in  1920, 

188 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  189 

of  a  Republican  member  of  the  Foreign  Relations  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate  as  the  Republican  candidate  for 
President  was  produced  by  the  strongest  psychological 
reasons,  and  the  choice  fell  upon  Mr.  Harding  because 
additional  factors,  geographical  and  otherwise,  were  in 
his  favor.  The  Senate  was  absorbed  for  many  months 
in  the  struggle  over  the  League  of  Nations,  which 
both  parties  contrived  to  make  an  issue  in  the  approach- 
ing presidential  campaign. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  the  Republican 
party  was  confronted  by  the  necessity  of  effecting  a 
complete  rehabilitation.  The  Sixty-Sixth  Congress 
convened  with  a  Democratic'  President  in  the  White 
House  having  two  years  yet  to  serve,  and  this  threw 
upon  the  Republican  veterans  of  the  House  a  serious 
duty  with  respect  to  the  shaping  of  the  party's  do- 
mestic policies,  which  the  Senate,  in  its  absorption  in 
the  treaty,  generally  neglected. 

The  old  order  in  the  House  to  which  Republican 
statesmen  had  been  accustomed  had  passed  away.  The 
organization  which  Mr.  Cannon  had  perfected  and  that 
had  been  destroyed  by  the  catastrophe  of  1910,  had 
been  broken  up,  and  moreover  its  instincts  had  been 
dulled  and  its  spirit  crushed,  although  as  individuals 
some  of  the  men  who  had  been  component  parts  of 
that  organization  in  minor  roles  still  retained  their 
places  in  Congress.  Much  can  happen  in  eight  years, 
and  for  so  long  a  period  as  this  the  Democratic  party 
had  administered  the  business  of  the  House,  had 
created  and  controlled  committees,  had  shaped  legisla- 
tion, and  given  strong  tendencies  to  legislative  policies 
of  government,  had  established  new  precedents  in  the 
governing  of  the  House,  and  had  been  in  charge  of  all 


190       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

its  manifold  routine  affairs.  It  was  only  natural  that 
under  circumstances  such  as  these  the  Republican 
party  should  have  returned  to  power  considerably  de- 
moralized psychologically,  and  out  of  the  knack  of  do- 
ing things  as  it  had  been  accustomed  to  do  them  so 
many  years  before  under  an  entirely  different  state 
of  affairs. 

It  became  the  self-imposed  duty  of  certain  Repub- 
licans of  long  experience  in  the  House,  who  had  served 
under  the  previous  regime,  who  possessed  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  business  of  the  House,  who  enjoyed 
the  advantages  of  wide  acquaintanceship,  and  to  whom 
new  Members  turned  instinctively  for  guidance,  to 
take  such  steps  as  they  deemed  most  advisable  in  the 
circumstances  to  reconstruct  the  machinery  of  House 
government,  first  for  the  transaction  of  the  business 
of  that  particular  Congress,  and  second  in  anticipation 
of  the  return  of  the  party  to  power  in  all  branches  of 
the  federal  administration  in  the  next  elections. 

For  many  years  prior  to  the  defeat  of  1910  the 
Republicans  of  the  House  had  been  accustomed  to 
strongly  centralized  management  in  that  body.  It  was 
no  longer  possible  to  employ  such  a  system.  The  prece- 
dents established  by  Mr.  Speaker  Clark  in  becoming 
the  mere  moderator  of  the  House  had  attained  the 
stamp  of  approval  of  no  inconsiderable  period  of  time. 
From  the  political  point  of  view  the  prominent  figures 
among  the  Republicans,  none  of  whom  was  an  out- 
standing national  leader,  with  a  national  following, 
felt  under  the  necessity  of  moving  with  great  caution 
and  circumspection.  A  return  to  the  old  order  which 
had  prevailed  under  Reed  and  Cannon  was  not  seri- 
ously considered  by  anybody,  and  in  the  end  the  new 


i  / 
1  I 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  191 

Republican  House  accepted  the  radical  formulas  which 
had  been  established  by  their  Democratic  opponents. 
All  the  subsequent  actions  of  the  Republican  Houses 
in  the  Sixty-Sixth  and  Sixty-Seventh  Congresses  must, 
therefore,  be  contemplated  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that 
those  Houses  functioned  under  rules  Democratic  in 
conception  and  construction. 

Although  the  power  of  the  speakership  had  been 
annihilated,  and  its  restoration  was  not  contemplated, 
the  election  of  a  Speaker,  around  whom  to  build  a 
new  party  organization,  was  of  major  importance. 
ecisicms_with  respecttfilling_ 


_  ^ 
nf'UTA  TTnnaA  ijgp]f  _  Be- 


fore the  House  assembled  *  there  had  been  numerous 
conferences  of  regular  and  progressive  Republican 
leaders  in  the  country  at  which  the  speakership  was 
considered. 

During  the  speakership  of  Mr.  Clark  in  the  four 
Democratic  Congresses  between  the  Sixty-First  and 
Sixty-Sixth,  Mr.  James  R.  Mann,  of  Illinois,  had  been 
the  minority  leader,  by  the  choice  of  the  Republican 
conference,  and  when  the  minority  became  the  ma- 
jority he  naturally  aspired  to  promotion  to  the  ros- 
jtrum.  A  strong  group  in  the  House,  particularly  from 
the  West,  desired  that  he  should  be  Speaker,  but  the 
influence  of  certain  very  busy  leaders  in  the  country, 
together  with  that  of  elements  within  the  House,  and 
in  the  Senate,  was  thrown  against  Mr.  Mann,  whose 
record  in  the  period  immediately  preceding  America's 
entrance  into  the  World  War  was  held  to  count  against 
him.  Pressure  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Mr.  Mann  to 
induce  him  to  withdraw  as  a  candidate  for  the  speak- 


*May  19,  1919. 


192        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ership,  but  he  declined  to  do  so.  The  choice  of  the 
faction  which  finally  gained  control  fell  upon  Mr.  Frec}- 
erick  T*^jnrtt  "f  M^^rliy^^s.  who  had  served  in, 
the  Housecontinuously  since  the  Fifty-Third  Con- 
gress,  in  1893,  and  who  ranked  next  in  seniority  to  Mr. 
Cannon,  the  venerable  "Father  of  the  House."  So  well 
did  xMr.  Gillett's  supporters  conduct  their  campaign 
that  his  nomination  became  assured  in  advance  of  the 
meeting  of  the  Republican  conference  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress,  and  they  entered  that 
caucus  with  enough  votes  to  carry  out  their  program, 
both  with  respect  to  the  speakership,  and  the  organ- 
ization of  the  House. 

Mr.  Mann  had  long  been  perhaps  the  most  astute 
and  resourceful  parliamentarian  in  the  House.  He 
was  bold  and  shrewd  and  never  at  a  loss  for  a  happy 
expedient.  He  realized  that  he  would  be  defeated  in 
the  conference  for  the  speakership,  but  through  his 
ingenuity  managed  to  turn  that  defeat  into  a  substan- 
tial victory,  a  circumstance  which  afterward  coming 
to  pass,  was  to  exercise  such  an  important  influence 
upon  subsequent  Republican  history  in  the  House  as 
to  be  of  transcendent  significance. 

The  minor  leaders  who  had  decided  upon  Mr.  Gil- 
lett  as  the  man  around  whom  to  build  their  new  or- 
ganization determined  to  control  the  House  through 
/control  of  the  Gommittee^on  Committees  which  was 
'  to  be  created  and  charged  with  the  duty  of  making  up 
the  committees  of  the  House.    The  committee  which 
should  remake  the  fifty  or  sixty  committees  of  the 
House  would  have  a  part,  and  a  most  substantial  part, 
of  the  old  power  which  had  belonged  under  the  pre- 
vious Republican  regime  to  the  Speaker.    This  power 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  193 

rested  in  the  last  analysis  upon  the  ability  to  reward 
and  to  punish,  to  give  men  places  of  preference,  of 
dignity,  distinction  and  opportunity  under  the  com- 
mittee system,  or  to  deny  those  places. 

Those  who  were  seeking  to  control  the  House  in 
the  interest  of  party  discipline  intended  to  concentrate 
this  power  in  the  hands  of  a  small  committee,  and  the 
slate  had  been  agreed  upon,  through  understandings 
reached  among  Members,  in  advance  of  the  conference. 
They  would  have  substituted  for  the  old  system  of  the 
highly  centralized  oligarchy,  a  new  oligarchy  by  no 
means  so  formidable  as  the  old  but  possessing  some 
of  its  attributes  and  in  a  position  to  acquire  others 
gradually  through  the  exercise  of  those  powers  thus 
conferred. 

Mr.  Mann  upset  this  plan.    In  the  Republican  con- 
ference, at  the  last  moment,  when  the  program  thus 
secretly  agreed  upon  seemed  certain  of  adoption,  and 
when  Mr.  Gillett's  nomination  as  the  party  candidate 
for  Speaker  had  become  assured,  Mr.  Mann  proposed 
\  that  the  Committee  on  Committees  of  the  House  should 
i  consist  of  one  .member  from  each  state  having  Republi- 
jcan  representation  in  the  House,  to  be  chosen  by  the 
'  state  delegation  and,  in  the  determination  of  committee 
assignments  to  cast  a  vote  equal  to  the  Republican 
vote  of  the  state.    It  was  an  adroit  move.    It  appealed 
with  irresistible  force  to  every  one  since  it  offered  a 
place  on  the  Committee  on  Committees  to  every  state. 
\l  The  amendment  was  adopted  and  Mr.  Mann  emerged 
M  from  the  conference  defeated  as  to  the  speakership 
I  but  a  real  victor  in  the  contest,  as  time  was  to  show. 

By  the  revolution  of  1910  the  Speaker  had  been 
removed  from  the  Committee  on  Rules  and  was  de- 


194        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

prived  of  the  power  of  appointing  it.  This  was  as  far 
as  the  Republican  reform  went.  The  power  of_naming 
the  committees  of  the  House  still  rested  in  him.  The 
Democratic  revision  of  the  rules  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Sixty-Second  Congress  made  far  more  radical 
changes,  changes  which  psychologically  might  be 
traced  to  the  deeply  rooted  Democratic  tradition  of 
weak  Houses  and  strong  Presidents.  The  Democratic 
rules  of  the  previous  Congress  were  adopted  by  the 
Republican  House  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress,  and 
to  the  fact  that  these  rules  did  not  originate  in  Republi- 
can brains,  were  antagonistic  to  the  Republican  theories 
and  principles,  unsuited  to  Republican  temperament 
and  at  variance  with  the  Republican  genius  must  be 
ascribed  the  failure  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  and  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congresses  to  function  with  greater  smooth- 
ness. The  Republicans  accepted  the  formulas  of  their 
opponents,  not  because  as  a  party  they  believed  in 
them,  but  largely  because  it  was  expedient  to  do  so 
and  there  seemed  to  be  no  alternative.  Psychologically 
it  was  an  act  of  political  immorality. 

Upon  this  foundation_pf  Democratic  rules  of  pro- 
cedure, and  with  a  Speaker  Jn  the  Chair  lacking  in  all 
the  qualities  of^  aggression,  the  Republican  House  un- 
dertook to  reorganize  the  system  "of  congressional  gov- 
ernment, and  to  pass  acts  which  would  have  to  be 
submitted JXL .a .Democratic  President.  As  thus  con- 
stituted the  new  Republican  organization  took  charge 
of  the  House  at  the  close  of  a  period  of  eight  years  of 
Democratic  administration,  during  which  that  party 
had  acquired  a  new  confidence  in  itself,  and  had  won 
new  elements  of  support  in  the  nation. 

At  the  head  of  the  organization  there  stood  theoreti- 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  195 

cally  the  Speaker,  but  the  new  system  was  not  devised 
to  aggrandize  his  power,  and  at  the  beginning  he  was 
carefully  excluded  by  the  Republican  scheme  from  all 
opportunity  to  obtain  a  greater  influence  or  authority 
in  the  House.  Mr,  Gillett  himself  did  not  seek  to  ac- 
quire either,  but  remained)  as  Mr.  Clark  had  desired 
to  be,  solely  the  presiding  officer  of  the  House,  so  that 
at  the  close  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress  to  all  outward 
appearance  the  Speaker  had  no  greater  strength  as  a 
party  leader  than  he  had  possessed  the  day  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  reforms  through  which  the  old  power 
of  the  Speaker  had  been  stripped  from  him. 

As  finally  perfected  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress 
the  new  Republican  system  of  party  administration  in 
the  House  consisted  of  the  Speaker,  the  Flojir  Leader, 
the  Committee  on  Committees,  the  Steering  Committee, 
the  Committee  6h  Rules,  and  the  ChairmenjQf  the  Com- 
mittees on  Appropriations,  which  had  been  increased 
in  consequence  of  one  of  the  most  important  reforms 
ever  accomplished  in  the  House;  and  of  Ways  and 
Means. 

An  analysis  of  the  fundamental  spiritual  difference 
between  the  old  system  and  the  new  is  essential  to  an 
intelligent  understanding  of  the  difference  in  the  man- 
ner of  operation  of  the  two  systems. 

Despite  all  the  faults  inherent  in  the  system  which 
Reed  had  inherited  from  Colfax  and  Elaine  and  from 
Henry  Clay,  and  had  improved,  and  had  passed  on  to 
his  successors,  and  which  Cannon  had  made  into  a 
perfect  piece  of  political  mechanism,  it  at  least  had 
this  to  commend  it  to  the  people,  that  it  had  the  cour- 
age of  its  convictions,  was  honest  and  stood  four- 
square, and  was  at  all  times  in  the  open  exposed  to  the 


196        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

pitiless  glare  of  publicity.  Every  action  it  committed 
was  instantly  known  throughout  the  country.  The 
oligarchy  demanded  power  commensurate  with  its  re- 
sponsibility, but  the  people  could  always  hold  it  to  that 
responsibility.  The  names  of  those  who  constituted 
the  oligarchy  were  matters  of  public  record.  They 
appeared  in  the  Congressional  Directory.  The  name 
of  the  Speaker  was  known,  and  it  was  known  to  every 
one  that  he  stood  at  the  head  of  the  House,  the  creator 
of  the  committees,  having  the  power  of  appointment 
and  of  removal,  that  therefore  if  a  committee  refused 
to  report  a  bill  which  the  country  demanded  the 
Speaker  as  the  master  of  that  committee  was  respon- 
sible. The  names  of  the  members  of  the  Committee 
on  Rules  were  known.  Aside  from  the  Speaker,  the 
chairman,  there  were  only  two  of  the  majority  party, 
and  in  Mr.  Speaker  Cannon's  time,  and  in  Mr.  Reed's 
time,  their  names  were  household  words.  With  the 
exception  of  the  committee  chairmen,  who  were  the 
Speaker's  lieutenants,  and  the  Floor  Leader,  who  was 
the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means, 
there  were  few  other  members  of  the  inner  circle.  Not 
only  were  these  responsible  leaders  of  the  House  up  to 
the  Sixty-Second  Congress  thus  indicated  in  public 
documents,  but  they  took  pride  in  distinguishing  them- 
selves among  their  fellows  by  a  peculiar  badge  which 
they  wore.  This  was  a  red  carnation,  and  that  small 
flower  in  a  buttonhole  meant  that  men  served  as 
leaders  of  the  House  unafraid  and  unashamed.  It  was 
a  touch  of  grim  sentiment. 

The  new  order  became  a  system  of  secret  govern- 
ment in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  in  this  lies 
its  chief  weakness  and  greatest  menace.  It  does  not 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  197 

operate  in  the  open,  but  under  cover.  It  does  not  stand 
four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blow,  nor  does  it  court 
publicity.  It  avoids  the  light  and  suppresses  all  men- 
tion of  itself.  The  names  of  the  gentlemen  constituting 
this  system  are  nowhere  of  public  record  except  with 
respect  to  the  Speaker,  the  chairmen  of  committees  of 
the  House,  and  where  they  appear  in  the  list  of  Repre- 
sentatives. The  Floor  Leader  is  known  simply  by  that 
title,  and  by  none  other. 

The  members  constituting  the  Committee  on  Com- 
mittees and  the  Steering  Committee  are  not  a  part  of 
the  organization  of  the  House,  but  of  the  caucus ;  they 
are  not  the  creatures  and  servants  of  the  House  but 
of  the  caucus;  they  are  not  responsible  to  the  House 
itself,  or  to  the  American  people,  but  to  the  caucus,  or 
conference,  as  it  is  styled.  Not  being  responsible  they 
can  not  be  held  to  accountability.  Under  the  old  sys- 
tem if  a  bill  in  which  the  people  were  interested  could 
not  pass  for  the  reason  that  it  could  not  be  brought 
before  the  House  the  Speaker  and  his  Committee  on 
Rules  could  be  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion. 
Under  the  new  system  if  a  bill  in  which  the  people 
are  interested  can  not  obtain  consideration  nobody  can 
be  held  responsible  for  the  reason  that  nobody  knows 
that  anybody  is  responsible.  The  Speaker  can  not  be 
thus  held,  since  it  is  notorious  that  the  Speaker  has  no 
power,  and  the  Floor  Leader  can  not  be  held  to 
account,  since  the  House  openly  has  clothed  him  with 
no  power. 

Obviously  there  is  a  responsible  power  somewhere 
in  the  House,  for  the  country  from  time  to  time  has 
evidence  that  certain  bills  are  put  forward,  and  that 
others  are  held  back.  Where  then  has  gone  the  power 


198       THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

that  Reed  and  Cannon  used  to  wield?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion of  vital  concern  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
America,  to  every  person  who  believes  in  the  principle 
of  responsible,  representative  government,  and  desires 
that  it  shall  survive.  Since  under  the  new  system  no 
individual  can  be  held  blamable  for  the  failures  and 
mistakes  of  the  House  since  none  has  any  known 
power,  it  has  come  about  that  the  whole  House  is  held 
to  accountability. 

Many  thousands  of  bills  were  introduced  in  the 
House  during  the  first  session  of  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress,  and  only  a  few  of  them  became  laws,  so  that 
it  is  clear  that  some  force  in  the  House  determined 
that  certain  bills  should  be  enacted,  and  that  the  others 
should  not.  That  force  is  the  House  itself.  The  instru4 
mentality  through  which  the  House  thus  works  func- 
tions in  secret,  and  under  a  power  delegated  to  it  for 
the  same  reasons  which  prompted  the  House  under  the 
old  sj^stem  to  delegate  power  to  its  leaders.  Previously 
the  country  could  see  the  wheels  go  round.  Now  it 
can  not.  Thus  it  becomes  a  matter  of  most  serious 
public  interest  to  examine  into  the  operations  of  the 
new  organization,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  wherein 
the  government  of  the  people  is  in  better  hands  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  to-day  than  it  was  a  dozen 
years  ago.  The  character  of  public  men  changes  little 
from  year  to  year.  The  average  of  ability  in  the  House, 
as  in  the  Senate,  has  only  slightly,  if  at  all,  decreased 
under  the  primary  system.  There  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered the  question  of  opportunity,  and  the  opportun- 
ity of  the  individual  to  exert  his  proper  influence  upon 
the  making  of  laws  is  largely  dependent  upon  the 
method  of  management  by  which  the  House  conducts 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  199 

its  own  business.  On  this  point  the  destruction  of  the 
speakership  under  Cannon  was  predicated. 

Of  the  Republican  organization  created  under  this 
complicated  and  secret  system,  consisting  of  Speaker, 
Floor  Leader,  Committee  on  Committees,  Steering 
Committee,  Committee  on  Rules,  the  Appropriations 
Committee,  and,  as  a  relic  from  the  traditional  past, 
the  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  the 
Speaker  became  ostensibly  the  head.  But  under  the 
new  order  the  Speaker  does  not  appoint  the  Committee 
on  Rules,  is  not  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules 
and  has  no  authority  over  it,  he  has  no  power  to  ap- 
point any  of  the  committees,  and  only  theoretically 
does  he  still  possess  the  ancient  right  of  recognition. 
1-yHe  is  merely  the  presiding  officer. 

Thp  F1nnr^Leader  is  ex-officio  chairman  of  the 
Steering  Committee,  and  is  also  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on 'Committees. 

Th^Cojmmiitejj_on^  by  the  House, 

the  Republican  and  Democratic  members  being  chosen 
in  their  respective  caucuses.  In  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress  no  member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  was 
a  member  of  the  Steering  Committee  and  only  one 
member  of  Rules  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  on 
Committees.  The  chairman  of  the  Rules  Committee, 
who  under  the  previous  Republican  regime  had  been 
the  Speaker,  is  not,  under  the  new  system,  connected 
formally  with  either  of  the  two  governing  committees 
of  the  House. 

There  was  thus,  in  the  Sixty-Sixth  and  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congresses,  under  a  strict  interpretation  of  the 
plan  adopted  by  the  Republican  conference,  only  a 
slight  interlocking  of  powers  and  functions.  The  Floor 


200        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Leader  was  chairman  of  both  the  Committee  on  Com- 
mittees and  the  Steering  Committee.  In  only  two 
other  instances  were  members  of  one  committee  mem- 
bers also  of  the  other. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress  Mr. 
Frank  W.  Mondell,  of  Wyoming,  was  elected  Floor 
Leader  of  the  majority,  by  the  Republican  conference, 
and  he  has  been  responsible  very  largely  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  new  system  of  party  government  in 
the  House  since  that  time,  exerting  upon  the  institution 
of  House  management  an  influence  commensurate  with 
that  which  was  the  contribution  of  Thomas  B.  Reed 
during  the  period  when  the  idea  of  centralized  author- 
ity was  being  worked  out.  Mr.  Mondell  was  gifted  in 
a  very  high  degree  with  precisely  those  qualities  essen- 
tial to  floor  leadership  under  the  conditions  as  they 
existed.  He  had  served  in  the  House  continuously 
since  the  Fifty-Sixth  Congress,  and  had  been  a 
Member  of  the  Fifty-Fourth  Congress,  under  Reed. 
He  knew  the  business  of  Congress  as  thoroughly 
as  did  Mr.  Mann  or  Mr.  Gillett.  Strong  enough  to 
withstand  the  tremendous  pressure  of  special  interests 
brought  to  bear  upon  him,  with  an  even  temperament, 
considerable  natural  political  instinct,  enough  philos- 
ophy to  enable  him  to  keep  his  temper  in  the  give-and- 
take  struggles  of  parliamentary  life,  and  enjoying  the 
confidence  of  the  House  both  on  the  score  of  personal 
integrity  and  practical  ability,  he  was  the  best  choice 
that  could  have  been  made  initiating  an  untried 
scheme  of  party  management.  His  political  ambition 
did  not  lead  him  to  seek  its  gratification  in  the  ag- 
grandizement of  his  office,  which  he  administered  with 
a  view  to  the  promotion  of  its  success  as  an  experiment 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  201 

involving  the  whole  party  interest.  Originally  his  name 
had  headed  the  committee  slate  of  the  faction  which 
had  sought  to  make  Mr.  Gillett  Speaker  and  secure 
the  election  of  a  small  Committee  on  Committees,  and 
he  was  not  the  choice  of  the  Mann  faction  for  Floor 
Leader.  Under  the  system  in  vogue  in  various  Repub- 
lican regimes  the  Floor  Leader  had  been  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means;  thus  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  McKinley  and  Payne  had  been  the  Floor 
Leaders  of  their  party ;  and  the  same  system  prevailed 
on  the  Democratic  side.  Mr.  Mondell  owed  his  posi- 
tion as  Floor  Leader  to  the  Steering  Committee,  and 
not  to  Ways  and  Means.  A  member  of  no  committee 
of  the  House,  as  Floor  Leader  he  was  able  to  devote 
his  entire  time  to  the  committees  constituted  by  the 
party  conference.  As  Floor  Leader  he  became  in  fact 
and  theory  the  leader  of  the  majority.  The  Speaker 
excelled  him  perhaps  in  dignity,  but  not  in  power. 

In  the  Sixty-Second  Congress,  the  first  over  which 
Mr.  Clark  presided,  Mr.  Mann,  the  Republican  candi- 
date for  Speaker,  became  the  minority  leader,  and  the 
Republicans  having  then  no  Committee  on  Committees, 
he  named  all  the  minority  members  of  committees, 
the  party  conference  leaving  this  to  him,  although  the 
House,  of  course,  went  through  the  more  or  less  absurd 
formality  of  electing  them,  to  maintain  the  fiction  that 
the  House  of  Representatives  was  its  own  master, 
which,  of  course,  it  certainly  was  not  so  far  as  the 
creation  of  its  committees  was  concerned.  It  would 
take  the  House  itself  probably  not  less  than  a  year  to 
create  its  own  committees,  passing  in  judgment  upon 
the  claims  of  all  the  candidates  for  desirable  places, 
listening  to  interminable  argument,  wrangling  and 


202        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

quarreling  over  the  chairmanships.  Under  the  old 
regime  everybody  knew  who  was  responsible  for  mak- 
ing up  the  committees;  under  the  new,  nobody  did. 
Finally  Mr.  Mann  proposed  a  Republican  Committee 
on  Committees,  which  was  appointed  in  the  Sixty- 
Fifth  Congress. 

In  the  Sixty-Fourth  Congress,  after  the  elections  of 
1916,  the  Republicans  had  felt  the  need  of  a  Commit- 
tee on  Organization  for  the  Sixty-Fifth  Congress,  and 
on  February  5,  1917,  the  Republican  Conference 
adopted  a  resolution  that  a  committee  of  twenty-seven 
be  appointed  to  take  under  consideration  questions  re- 
lating to  the  minority  organization  in  the  next  House. 
Mr.  Mondell  was  chairman  of  this  committee,  which 
recommended  to  the  Republican  conference — the  word 
caucus  was  in  disrepute  and  was  no  longer  used — in 
the  Sixty-Fifth  Congress  that  committee  assignments 
should  be  made  by  a  Committee  on  Committees  of  sev- 
enteen members  having  no  other  functions. 

Mr.  Mann  became  chairman  of  this  Committee  on 
Committees,  and  also  of  an  Advisory  Committee  of 
five,  which  was  created  at  the  same  time.  This  Advis- 
ory Committee  was  the  beginning  of  the  Republican 
Steering  Committee  of  the  House.  Thus  at  this  time 
there  was  a  considerable  concentration  of  power,  al- 
though a  minority  power,  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Mann, 
who  was  the  minority  leader,  or  chief  spokesman  and 
parliamentary  strategist  of  his  party  on  the  floor, 
chairman  of  the  committee  which  possessed  the  power 
of  reward  and  of  punishment  in  making  committee 
assignments,  and  chairman  of  the  committee  which 
determined  party  policies  and  programs.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  if  Mr.  Mann  had  been  elected 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  203 

Speaker  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress 
he  would  have  been  able  to  restore  to  the  Chair  a  large 
measure  of  the  power  which  had  reposed  in  it  in  Can- 
non's time,  for  he  was  not  only  competent  and  ag- 
gressive, but  bold,  resourceful  and  ambitious.  But  the 
interference  of  Republican  politicians  outside  of  the 
House  prevented  this,  and  the  party  whose  conserva- 
tives dreaded  a  possible  revival  of  insurgency  followed 
the  course  of  least  resistance,  elevated  a  presiding  elder 
to  the  pontifical  seat  and  adopted  the  Democratic  rules 
which  had  sprung  from  the  Bryan  platform  of  1908. 
No  more  than  could  an  individual  have  thus  departed 
from  the  precepts  and  traditions  of  a  lifetime  without 
becoming  demoralized  could  a  political  party  survive 
uninjured  such  a  repudiation  of  its  basic  principles.  As 
time  went  on  the  Republican  majority  found  it  neces- 
sary to  correct,  more  or  less  clandestinely,  the  errors 
from  which  they  could  not  save  themselves  at  the 
outset. 

The  task  which  confronted  Mr.  Mondell  was  that  of 
a  practical  statesman.  He  did  not  create  the  conditions 
which  he  was  obliged  to  meet  at  the  beginning  of  his 
term  of  leadership,  but  since  they  existed  he  and  his 
associates,  men  like  Mr.  Philip  P.  Campbell,  who  be- 
came chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Rules,  Mr.  Mad- 
den, Mr.  Samuel  E.  Winslow,  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Mr.  Nicholas  Longworth,  of  Ohio,  were  compelled  to 
conduct  the  business  of  the  House  as  best  they  could. 
These  men,  and  a  few  others,  became  leaders  in  the 
best  sense,  seeking  to  carry  out  the  will  of  the  House 
without  sacrifice  of  efficiency.  Mr.  Longworth  devel- 
oped into  one  of  the  strongest  figures  the  House  had 
seen  in  recent  years,  and  when  Mr.  Mondell  announced 


204        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

his  voluntary  withdrawal,  to  take  effect  with  the  close 
of  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  the  party  turned  to 
Mr.  Longworth  as  perhaps  the  best  equipped  man  to 
take  his  place.  In  addition  to  being  a  member  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee,  and  the  soundest  student 
of  the  tariff  on  the  Republican  side,  the  Ohioan  had 
long  been  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Committees 
and  of  the  Steering  Committee.  Thus  a  considerable 
influence,  if,  indeed,  not  a  large  measure  of  responsi- 
bility already  reposed  in  his  hands,  and  as  he  combined 
with  long  experience  an  excellent  judgment,  and  sym- 
pathetic unHerstanding  of  the  aspirations  and  tribula- 
tions of  his  party,  "and  was  at  once  both  progressive 
and  conservative,  he  enjoyed  to  an  unusual  degree  the 
confidence  of  Republicans  of  all  shades  of  political 
opinion.  Convincingjn  debate  without  being  an  ora- 
tor, thoroughly  familiar  with  the  rules,  and  having  a 
personality  which  won  many  and  repelled  none,  he 
possessed  most  of  the  attributes  essential  to  a  success- 
ful parliamentary  leader.  Although  he  took  an  active 
part  in  the  proceedings  on  the  floor,  it  was  rather  in 
the  exercise  of  his  influence  on  the  Committee  on  Com- 
mittees, and  especially  on  the  Steering  Committee,  that 
he  was  most  effective  as  a  party  leader  in  the  House. 

As  constituted  the  Steering  Committee  was  a 
creature  of  the  Committee  on  Committees,  which  pre- 
sented the  names  of  its  members  to  the  caucus,  or  con- 
ference, for  ratification;  but  in  reality  the  members 
were  agreed  on  by  small  groups  of  minor  leaders,  the 
really  strong  men  of  the  party  in  the  House,  so  that 
although  the  new  system  was  supposed  to  have  liberal- 
ized the  rules,  freed  the  individual  Member,  given  to 
each  a  voice  in  the  party  business,  actually  important 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  205 

selections  such  as  the  perspnneljof^the  Steering  Com- 
mittee were  madejn  secret  not_QnIyj?utside  the^House, 
but  even  outside  the  caucus;  and  as  a  practical  con- 
sequence THe~"greaF  mass  of  Republican  Members  in 
the  House  had  absolutely  no  more  to  do  with  the  ap- 
pointment of  an  important  committee  than  they  had 
had  under  the  old  system  in  the  days  of  Elaine,  Reed 
and  Cannon.  The  same  was  true  with  respect  to  the 
selectioiupf  ttuLFloor  Leader,  who  was  as  a  matter  of 
form  approved  by  the  caucus  by  resolution,  but  who 
actually  was  determined  upon  jbjfjthe  strong^  men  of 
the  party  at  conferences  held  among  themselves,  and 
in  consequences  of  which  an  agreement  was  reached, 
and  the  necessary  votes  secured  in  advance  of  the  meet- 
ing of  the  caucus.  The  Committee  on  Committees  rec- 
ommended to  the  House  the  names  of  the  chairmen  of 
the  various_committees  which  under  the  rules  were 
elected  by  the  House. 

The  method  of  making  up  the  organization  of  the 
House  under  such  a  plan  was  much  more  complicated 
than  had  been  the  previous  system  of  the  strong 
Speakers,  but  in  practical  operation  it  was  far  more 
so  than  appeared  on  the  surface. 

The  real .....power  in  the  Republican  House  was 
largely  lodged  in  the  Committee  on  Committees,  and 
theoretically  the  thirty-nine  members  of  the  committee, 
representing  the  Republican  states,  and  each  casting  a 
vote  equal  to  the  Republican  strength  in  the  House  of 
his  state  decided  who  should  be  the  members  of  the 
fifty  or  sixty  committees  of  the  House,  and  constituted 
them  as  they  saw  fit.  Actually,  from  the  inauguration 
of  the  new  system,  the  control  of  the  Committee  on 
Committees  virtually  passed  to  Mr.  Mann,  the  Member. 


206        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

exercising  by  far  the  greatest  single  personal  influence 
in  the  House,  and  thus  Mr.  Mann,  the  Illinois  veteran 
and  former  floor  assistant  of  Cannon,  became  in  con- 
sequence of  many  subtle  factors  the  true  power  behind 
the  scenes  in  the  House,  and  this  not  only  unknown  to 
the  country,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  very  generally 
unknown  to  the  House.  In  dominating  the  committee 
which  assigned  the  committee  places  to  the  Republican 
membership  of  the  House  Mr.  Mann  controlled  the 
right  of  reward  and  punishment,  and  in  any  organiza- 
tion, in  any  form  of  society,  that  is  an  attribute  of 
power. 

Mr.  Mann  had  entered  the  House  first  in  1897,  and 
had  served  continuously  since  the  Fifty-Fifth  Con- 
gress. For  many  years,  under  the  old  regime  which 
had  come  to  an  end  in  the  disasters  of  1910,  he  had 
done  the  greater  part  of  the  detail  work  for  Mr. 
Speaker  Cannon  in  making  up  the  numerous  commit- 
tees of  the  House. 

The  formation  of  these  committees  required  and 
developed  an  extraordinary  knowledge  of  the  peculi- 
arities and  idiosyncrasies  of  every  individual  Member 
of  the  House.  Mr.  Mann's  task  was  to  see  that  in  the 
creation  of  the  committees  all  the  round  pegs  were  put 
in  the  round  holes  and  all  the  square  pegs  in  the  square 
holes,  that  men  were  given  places  best  suited  to  their 
qualities  of  mind  and  previous  experience  and  exactly 
tuned  to  their  temperament  and  talents.  Various  other 
considerations  of  course  had  to  be  borne  in  mind,  such 
as  those  regarded  as  essential  to  party  welfare.  Thus 
it  was  necessary  that  men  be  assigned  to  committees 
having  jurisdiction  over  special  interests  or  things  in 
which  they  were  concerned  as  representatives  of  con- 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  207 

stituents,  or  that  they  be  excluded  from  such  commit- 
tees, according  as  the  policies  and  plans  of  the  leaders 
might  dictate.  The  construction  of  such  committees  as 
Ways  and  Means,  to  which  went  all  revenue  and  tariff 
bills,  was  of  vital  importance  not  only  to  the  House 
but  to  sugar,  lumber,  shoes,  mining,  manufacturing, 
banking — to  all  the  manifold  business  interests  of  the 
United  States. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  man  who  for  years  under 
Mr.  Speaker  Cannon  had  devoted  himself  as  a  student, 
an  economist,  a  psychologist  and  a  practical  politician 
to  the  intricacies  of  .work  so  full  of  subleties  as  this 
should  come  to  exert  a  robust  influence  in  the  House. 
Add  to  this  composite  element  of  strength  that  he  had 
been  so  long  in  the.  House  as  to  know  intimately  every 
Republican  Member  better  than  he  knew  himself,  that 
he  was  gifted  with  extra^rdijaary__pj>w^r^  of  analysis, 
that  he  was  a  philosopher  and  a  cynic  and  understood 
the  weaknesses  of  men  and  how  to  use  them,  that  he 
had  the  history  and  traditions  of  the  House,  and  its 
rules  and  precedents,  at  his  finger  tips,  that  he  pos- 
sessed an  unusual  facility_  of  assertion  in  debate  and 
was  endowed  with  a  most  convincing_pjausibility,  espe- 
cially when  he  was  in  error,  and  that  he  was  exceeded 
by  none  in  audacity,  and  it  will  be  understood  how  Mr. 
Mann,  holcfing  no  place  whatever  in  the  House,  and 
serving,  ostensibly,  only  as  member  for  Illinois  on  the 
Committee  on  Committees,  became  the  greatest  single 
f orceun  Jthe-Ho.use_Qf JRepresentatives  after  the  Repub- 
lican party  returned  to  power  in  1919.  As  a  member  of 
this  committee  he  cast  a  total  of  twenty-four  votes,  a 
number  exceeded  only  by  those  cast  by  the  members 
representing  New  York  and  Pennsylvania. 


208        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

It  so  happened,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  coun- 
try, that  Mr.  Mann  was  imbued  with  a  profound  sense 
of  public  service.  He  had  been  in  the  House  for  so  long 
a  time  as  to  have  become  a  part  of  it,  and  he  performed 
the  duties  which  developed  upon  him  as  a  faithful 
servant  working  not  for  reward  but  for  the  mere  love 
of  work,  in  obedience  to  the  habits  of  a  lifetime  which 
he  could  not  break  if  he  would.  Under  the  new  regime 
the  duty  of  making  up  the  committees  fell  to  him, 
partly  because  no  other  man  in  the  party  had  so  great 
a  familiarity  with  the  details.  Constant  in  his  attend- 
ance upon  the  sessions  of  the  House,  always  in  his  seat, 
studying  and  examining  every  item  in  every  bill  pre- 
sented, he  devoted  himself  with  singular  singleness  of 
purpose  to  the  busniess_of  legislation.  Naturally  he 
was,  and  continued  to  be,  an  authority,  to  whom  his 
colleagues  turned  repeatedly  for  guidance  not  only  in 
time  of  crisis,  but  with  regard  to  the  routine  affairs  of 
the  House.  In  view  of  his  remarkable  natural  abilities, 
his  peculiar  talents,  his  unsparing  devotion  to  hard 
work,  his  great  grasp  of  all  the  legislative  problems 
in  relation  to  their  historical  background  and  their 
possible  future  significance,  and  his  penetrating  insight 
into  the  habits  and  character  of  his  four  hundred 
thirty-four  associates,  it  was  little  wonder  that  such  a 
man  should  have  come  to  occupy  in  the  organization  of 
his  party  a  position  without  an  exact  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the^JIouse.  Certain  qualities _Q£  manner 
which  aroused  antagonisms,  and  certain  pre-war  in- 
fluences in  American  politics  prevented  his  elevation 
to  the  speakership.  What  James  R.  Mann  might  have 
done  with  the  place  which  Reed  and  Cannon  had  held 
belongs  to  the  field  of  speculative  philosophy.  It  is 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  209 

quite  possible  that  subconsciously  the  House,  still 
reacting  tremendously  from  the  revolution  which 
Cannon's  strength  had  precipitated,  turned  instinc- 
tively from  a  man  who  might  become  too  strong  a 
Speaker  to  one  not  feared  on  that  grave  score. 

Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  service  which  Mr. 
Mann  rendered  to  the  Republican  party  was  in  connec- 
tion with  the  advancement  to  the  chairmanship  of  the 
enlarged  and  centralized  Committee  on  Appropriations 
of  Mr.  Martin  B.  Madden,  of  Illinois.  Mr.  Good,  of 
Iowa,  the  distinguished  chairman  of  the  old  committee 
under  whom  the  budget  system  had  been  established, 
was  to  retire  from  the  House  for  personal  reasons,  and 
the  leadership  of  the  House  was  confronted  by  the 
serious  responsibility  of  choosing  as  his  successor  the 
chairman  upon  whom  the  making  of  appropriations 
for  the  first  time  under  the  budget  would  fall.  Mr. 
Madden,  not  then  a  member  of  Appropriations,  was 
placed  upon  the  committee  well  down  in  the  list,  and 
upon  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Good  taking  effect,  he  was 
advanced  to  the  chairmanship.  Under  the  new  system 
the  leadership  of  the  House  was  able  to  act  precisely 
as  the  Speaker  had  acted  under  the  old  Republican 
regime.  The  seniority  rule  was  broken  in  order  to 
place  Mr.  Madden  at  the  head  of  the  committee,  ex- 
actly as  it  had  been  broken  years  before  by  Speaker 
Cannon  when  he  had  made  James  A.  Tawney,  of  Min- 
nesota, chairman  of  that  committee  out  of  order.  It  is 
significant  that,  confronted  by  a  question  similar  to 
that  which  had  been  met  by  Mr.  Cannon  by  an  unusual 
display  of  his  appointive  power,  the  leadership  of  the 
House  under  the  new  regime  had  followed  the  identical 
course  of  procedure.  It  was  a  striking  indication  of 


210        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  possible  efficiency  of  the  new  system.  Although 
Mr.  Madden  had  been  the  choice  of  Mr.  Mondell,  the 
Floor  Leader,  his  selection  was  actually  made  possible 
by  the  power  and  influence  on  the  Committee  on  Com- 
mittees of  Mr.  Mann.  Theoretically,  under  the  new 
rules,  the  election  of  a  chairman  of  a  committee  was  a 
prerogative  of  the  House  itself,  but  actually  the  House 
was  as  impotent  as  it  had  been  prior  to  the  reform 
of  1910. 

The  country  could  not  credit  Mr.  Mann  for  this 
sagacious  act  any  more  than  it  could  hold  him  respon- 
sible for  any  of  the  positive  or  negative  actions  of  the 
House,  since  theoretically  there  attached  to  him  neither 
power  nor  responsibility.  As  an  individual  Member 
of  the  House  he  was  responsible  only  to  the  voters  of 
his  congressional  district,  whereas,  under  the  regime 
which  passed  away  with  the  fall  of  Speaker  Cannon, 
such  an  exercise  of  authority  and  influence  could  only 
have  been  by  the  Speaker,  who  could  be,  and  was,  held 
to  strict  accountability.  Thus  the  incident  in  connec- 
tion with  the  reorganization  of  the  Appropriations 
Committee,  and  the  selection  of  additional  members 
when  the  committee  was  enlarged,  strikingly  illus- 
trates the  difference  between  the  publicity  of  the  old 
regime  and  the  secrecy  of  the  new.  It  so  happened 
that  Mr.  Mann  was  endowed  with  a  high  sense  of  pub- 
lic duty  and  that  his  actions  were  prompted  by 
wisdom,  but  one  can  not  examine  the  existing  system 
of  government  in  the  House  of  Representatives  as  de- 
vised by  the  Republican  party  without  perceiving  a 
possible  source  of  danger  for  the  future. 

Although  the  Republican  House  in  the  Sixty-Sixth 
Congress  adopted  the  rules  of  the  previous  Democratic 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  211 

House,  substantially  and  in  effect,  in  creating  their 
organization  of  the  House,  the  Republicans  went  much 
farther  than  the  Democrats  had  gone  in  the  direction 
of  the  decentralization  of  power.  For  one  thing,  the 
Republicans  had  come  back  into  control  of  the  House 
after  a  lesson  which  had  taught  them  to  fear  the  wrath 
of  public  opinion,  on  the  eve  of  a  presidential  cam- 
paign which  was  certain  to  be  vital  to  the  party,  and 
with  their  party  still  divided  by  the  tremendous  issues 
which  had  all  but  destroyed  it  in  1912. 

Psychologically  the  Republican  party  had  been  far 
more  deeply  moved  by  the  insurgency  of  1909  and 
1910,  and  the  Progressive  phenomena  which  followed, 
than  the  Democratic  party  had  been.  That  move- 
ment had  originated  as  a  protest  against  the  Republi- 
can party,  and  not  against  the  Democratic  party,  and 
it  had  rent  the  former  asunder  without  directly  in- 
fluencing the  latter.  The  Democratic  party  was 
united,  while  the  extent  to  which  the  wounds  inflicted 
upon  the  Republican  party  by  Progressivism  had 
healed  was  still  a  matter  of  conjecture  when  the  elec- 
tions of  1918  had  been  held.  Naturally  the  Repub- 
lican leaders  subconsciously  sought  to  propitiate  so 
far  as  they  could  the  progressive  sentiment  existing 
in  the  rank  and  file  of  their  party.  £1^  Jherefore 
did  not  centralize  a  considerable  power  in  the  Ways 
and  Means  Committee,  as  "the  Democrats  had  done, 
b'ut~dlvided  those  powers,  granting  the  appointment 
of  committees  to  a  special  Committee  on  Committees, 
and  delegating  the  administrative  business  of  the 
party,  and  the  work  incident  to  the  formulation  of 
party  policies,  to  a  Steering  Committee,  This  was 
developed,  in  the  Sixty^Seventh  Congress,  into  one  of 


212        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 
!*T 

the  most  interesting  parliamentary  experiments  ever 
attempted  in  the  House. 

The  chairman  of  the  Steering  Committee  became, 
by  action  of  the  party  caucus,  Floor  Leader.  This 
was  Mr.  Mondell,  who  thus  held  three  offices,  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Committees,  chairman  of 
the  Steering  Committee,  and  Floor  Leader.  As  he 
molded  the  character  of  the  latter  office  the  Floor 
Leader  came  to  exercise  the  functions  incident  to  the 
formulation  of  the  party  program,  and  a  great  deal  of 
power  gradually  passed  into  his  hands,  checked  by  the 
fact  that  he  was  not  a  member  of  the  Committee  on 
Rules,  and  by  the  curious  position  of  influence  held 
in  the  House  by  Mr.  Mann. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  there  was,  to  a  certain 
limited  extent,  an  interlocking  directorate,  combining 
some  of  the  functions  of  a  governing  committee  of 
the  House.  But  this  conception  was  not  carried  to  an 
ultimate  conclusion.  One  of  the  rules  of  the  caucus 
creating  the  Steering  Committee  provided  that  no 
chairman  of  a  committee  of  prime  importance  should 
be  a  member  of  it.  Theoretically  the  idea  was  that 
a  chairman  of  a  major  committee,  such  as  Ways  and 
Means,  would  not  have  the  time  to  devote  to  the  work 
of  the  Steering  Committee,  but  psychologically  what 
actuated  the  party  leaders  in  thus  decentralizing  their 
new  system  was  the  dread  of  arousing  another  insur- 
gency. The  selfishness  of  various  groups  and  factions 
within  the  party  also  contributed  to  the  shaping  of 
the  plan  along  these  lines.  This  decision  by  the  cau- 
cus was  rigidly  adhered  to,  so  that  whenever  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Steering  Committee  became  the  chairman  of 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  213 

one  of  the  more^importanir  committees  of  the  House 
he  relinquished  hisjplace_on  the  former. 

The  first  Steering  Committee  *  elected  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress  was,  geographi- 
cally, representative_of  the  Republican  strongholds  of 
the  country.  It  then  consisted  of  five  members,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  chairman,  but  was  later  increased  to 
seven,  under  circumstances  disclosing  the  inherent 
fear  in  the  Republican  party  of  the  groups  into  which 
their  party  had  shown  a  tendency  to  break  up. 

The  Steering  Committee,  like  the  Committee  on 
Committees,  is.  a  creature  of  the_  caucus,  and  not  of 
the  House.  It  is  chosen  by  a  majority  vote  in  the 
conference,  as  the  Republican  caucus  is  more  prop- 
erly termed,  and  has  no  official  existence.  It  is  as 
secretive  as^  the  Committee  on  Committees.  The  names 
of  its  members  are  not  of  public  record  anywhere, 
are  not  published  in  the  newspapers,  and  few  accounts 
of  its  proceedings_are  ever  printed.  In  the  beginning 
the  existence  of  such  a  committee  was  denied. 

Whatever  the  real  power  of  this  committee  may  be 
from  time  to  time,  under  varying  conditions,  the 
country  can  not  hold  it^respcmsible_f or jinjr_of _its  acts 
for  the  excellent  reasons,  first  that  its  actions  are  not 
known,  ancTsecond  that  even  if  the  names  of  the 
gentlemen^jspnstituting  it  were  known  they  could  not 
be  held  to  accounT'lsmce  otAciai]y2€^_cominittee  h^8 
no  existence.  Thus  the  system  devised  by  the  House 
Republicans  differed  radically  from  that  which  the 


*Mr.  Mondell,  of  Wyoming,  chairman;  Mr.  J.  Hampton 
Moore,  of  Pennsylvania;  Mr.  Martin  B.  Madden,  of  Illinois; 
Mr.  Nicholas  Longworth,  of  Ohio;  Mr.  Samuel  E.  Winslow, 
of  Massachusetts,  and  Mr.  Thomas  B.  Dunn,  of  New  York. 


214        THE  LEADERSHIP  OP  CONGRESS 

Democratic  party  had  established  when  it  had  placed 
the  responsibility  as  to  committee  assignments  and 
party  programs  directly  upon  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee,  and  its  chairman,  the  Floor  Leader,  all  of 
whom  were  officers  of  the  House,  and  not  the  secret 
agents  of  the  caucus. 

From  the  beginning  the  Steering  Committee,  as  it 
had  been  evolved  from  an  original  committee  of  three 
which  had  advised  the  Republican_leader  during  the 
time  that  the  party  was  in  the  minority,  showed  ele- 
ments of  strength.  Although  its  members  were  con- 
firmed by  the  caucus  in  effect  they  were  determined 
upon  in  secret  meetings  of  groups  of  leaders  held 
outside  the  House  and  outside  the  caucus,  so  that  the 
very  factors  which  led  to  their  selection  were  dis- 
cussed in  secrecy. 

With  the  organization  of  the  House  in  the  Sixty- 
Sixth  Congress  the  Steering  Committee  met  every 
morning,  and  decided  upon  the  various  measures 
which  pressed  for  consideration,  some  of  them  involv- 
ing grave  questions  of  party  policy,  calculated  to  af- 
fect not  only  the  successful  conduct  of  the  business 
of  the  House  itself,  but  the  chances  of  the  party  in 
the  elections  of  1920  to  which  all  looked  forward. 
There  was  much  pressure  to  be  met  from  those  who 
urged  favorable  action  upon  favorite  bills,  and  it  was 
met  by  the  committee  in  a  splendid  spirit  of  firmness. 

The  committee  would  send  for  the  members  of 
various  other  committees  before  which  bills  were 
pending,  and  would  state  to  them  the  merits,  or  ob- 
jectionable features,  of  these  measures,  as  they  were 
regarded  from  the  general  party  point  of  view.  There 
would  be  discussions  and  arguments,  and  an  effort  to 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  215 

compose  all  differences  in  a  spirit  of  harmony.  From 
the  outset  the  Steering  Committee  made  it  plain,  that 
in  the  event  of  happy  results  coming  from  the  action 
of  any  committee  of  the  House  on  a  bill,  that  commit- 
tee should  have  the  credit;  and  that  in  the  event  of 
misfortune  attending  their  efforts  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee stood  ready  to  bear  the  blame,  in  the  party. 

It  was  early  discovered  that  the  committees  of  the 
House  showed  a  marked  disposition  to  be  afraid  to 
accept  responsibility,  and  in  the  second  session  of  the 
Sixty-Seventh  Congress  it  was  evident  that  a  gradual 
breaking^down  in  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the 
House  wds  one  of  the  strong  tendencies  of  Congress 
under  thq-  new  Republican  system,  a  tendency  checked 
only  by  the  policy  of  the  Floor  Leader  and  the  Steer- 
ing Committee  to  accept  that  responsibility,  not  to 
the  country,  but  to  the  party  caucus  of  the  House. 
It  was  also  observable  that  after  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee had  been  increased  from  five  to  seven  in  mem- 
bership, it  failed  to  function  quite  so  well  as  it  had 
done  in  the  beginning,  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
theory  that  power  to  be  effective  should  be  central- 
ized. Psychologically  a  mistake  was  committed  in 
thus  increasing  the  membership  since  of  the  two  addi- 
tional members  added  one  certainly  was  added  be- 
cause he  represented,  in  the  House,  the  class  group 
in  the  country  of  organized  labor,  and  it  was  a  sign 
of  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  Republican  party  which 
inherited  from  the  Federalists  and  the  Whigs  the  tra- 
dition of  the  party  system  of  government  thus  to 
acknowledge  the  existence  of  the  bloc  as  a  factor  to 
be  reckoned  with  in  American  politics.  Agriculture 
also  was  given  representation  on  the  committee. 


216        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

The  increase  in  the  membership  of  the  Steering 
Committee  to  seven,  not  including  the  chairman,  was 
brought  about  in  consequence  of  an  agitation  in  tne 
House  for  a  more  representative  body,  and  it  was 
finally  accomplished  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congress,  on  the  recommendation  of  the 
Committee  on  Committees,  and  with  the  approval  of 
the  caucus.  It  was  indicative  of  an  increasing  ten- 
dency in  the  House  toward  the  disintegration  of  party 
and  the  growth  of  the  special  class.* 

The  meetings  of  the  Steering  Committee  are 
called  by  the  Floor  Leader,  as  the  exigencies  of  the 
business  of  the  House  require.  They  usually  take 
place  every  day.  Although  no  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Rules  is  a  member  of  the  Steering  Commit- 
tee, the  chairman  of  Rules  is  frequently  invited  to  sit 
with  the  Steering  Committee,  and  the  carrying  out 
of  party  programs  through  the  medium  of  rules  re- 
ported from  the  Committee  on  Rules  is  decided  upon 
in  conference.  Theoretically  the  Steering  Committee 
has  no  power  to  compel  the  Rules  Committee  to  re- 
port, or  not  to  report,  a  particular  rule,  and  harmoni- 
ous action  is  obtained  through  the  natural  instinct 
among  party  leaders  to  further  the  best  interests  of 
the  party  through  concerted  action.  There  is  no  obli- 
gation, under  the  Republican  system  of  party  manage- 
ment, upon  the  Committee  on  Rules  to  consult  with  the 
Floor  Leader,  and  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  sec- 
ond session,  the  unusual  spectacle  was  presented  of 

*At  the  second  session  of  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  (July 
1,  1922),  the  Steering  Committee  consisted  of  Mr.  Mondell, 
chairman;  Mr.  Longworth,  Mr.  Dunn,  Mr.  Darrow,  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Mr.  Greene,  of  Vermont;  Mr.  Sanders,  of  Indiana, 
Mr.  Nolan,  and  Mr.  Anderson. 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  217 

the  Rules  Committee  of  the  House  reporting  a  special 
rule  for  the  consideration  of  a  resolution  proposed  by 
a  Republican  Member  of  the  House  and  providing  for 
an  investigation  of  one  of  the  Executive  Departments 
under  the  Republican  administration. 

No  such  party  fiasco  as  this  would  have  been  pos- 
sible under  the  centralized  system  used  by  Reed 
and  Cannon  as  a  highly  perfected  instrumentality  of 
party  government.  The  fact  that  in  this  instance 
the  Rules  Committee  was  obliged  to  reverse  its  action, 
and  that  the  faux  pas  had  been  injurious  to  the  har- 
mony of  the  party,  illustrates  the  great  difficulties  at- 
tendant upon  the  administration  of  the  multitudinous 
affairs  of  so  large  a  parliamentary  body.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  general  practise  under  the  new  system  special 
rules  are  never  granted  except  after  conferences  be- 
tween the  Rules  Committee  and  the  Floor  Leader. 

Whether  the  addition  of  the  chairman  of  the  Rules 
Committee  to  the  Steering  Committee  would  prove  a 
useful  innovation  would  be  open  to  argument.  Ob- 
viously in  the  nature  of  things  the  chairman  of  the 
Rules  Committee  must  be  consulted  when  the  time  for 
final  legislative  action  in  putting  a  bill  upon  its  pas- 
sage is  reached,  and  it  might  prove  helpful  if  he  were 
a  member  of  the  Steering  Committee.  It  has  even  been 
proposed  that  the  system  be  modified  to  the  extent  of 
making  the  Committee  on  Rules  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee. This  would  carry  with  it  the  additional  change 
incident  to  the  Chairman  of  Rules  becoming  the  Floor 
Leader.  Under  such  an  arrangement  there  would  be 
a  very  considerable  concentration  of  the  former  power 
of  the  Speaker  in  the  hands  of  the  Floor  Leader. 

Highly  significant,  however,  is  a  modification  of 


218        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  original  scheme  of  House  organization  which  was 
quietly  accomplished  without  specific  authorization. 
By  the  plan  adopted  by  the  Republican  caucus  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress  the  Speaker  was 
designedly  kept  entirely  separate  and  distinct  from 
the  executive  organization  of  the  House.  It  was  the 
intent  of  the  caucus  that  the  Speaker  should  not  be  a 
member  of  the  Steering  Committee,  or  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Committees,  precisely,  as  by  the  rules  of  the 
House,  he  was  excluded  from  membership  on  the 
Rules  Committee,  from  which  place  he  had  drawn  so 
great  a  part  of  his  power. 

But  on  invitation  of  Mr.  Mondell,  the  Floor 
Leader,  the  Speaker,  Mr.  Gillett,  was  invited  to  at- 
tend the  meetings  of  the  Steering  Committee,  and  thus 
the  Speaker  participates  in  all  the  sessions  of  the 
committee  which  has  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the 
policy,  program  and  management  of  the  business  af- 
fairs of  the  House. 

Not  very  long  thereafter,  the  Speaker  invited  the 
Steering  Committee  to  meet  in  the  Speaker's  Room  in 
the  Capitol,  and  all  its  sessions  are  held  there.  Al- 
though not  a  member  of  the  committee,  either  by 
authority  of  the  House  or  of  the  caucus,  the  Speaker 
has  as  much  influence  and  as  much  voice.  Jn  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Steering  Committee  as  has  any  member. 
Thus  in  effect  the  Steering  Committee  consists  of  nine 
members,  includifig_ttie.  Speaker  and  the  Floor  Leader, 
and  upon  occasion  the  chairman  of  the  STules  Com- 
mittee takes  part  in  the  proceedings,  and  exerts 
by  virtue  of  his  position  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
party,  his  influence  upon  jthe  decisions  of  the  commit- 
tee. 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  219 

This,  then,  was  the  ingenius  system  devised  by 
the  Republican  party  upon  its  return  to  power,  for 
controlling  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  is  a  sys- 
tem at  once  more  decentralized  than  the  Democratic 
system  invented  for  meeting  the  contingency  caused 
by  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  the  speakership, 
and  more  disingenuous  in  intent  to  overcome  the 
handicaps  imposed  by  the  necessity  of  administering 
the  business  of  a  parliamentary  body  of  four  hundred 
thirty-five  members  under  rules  specifically  devised  to 
separate  power  and  responsibility.  The  party  man- 
agers labored  under  no  delusions.  They  understood  the 
imperfections  of  the  plan  and  sought  to  remedy  them. 

The  sessions  of  the  Steering  Committee,  sitting  be- 
hind closed  doors,  with  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  and 
often  the  chairman  of  Rules,  present,  are  held  in 
secret ;  the  proceedings  are  not  disclosed,  and  the  con- 
clusions reached  are  not  made  public.  Theoretically 
the  Speaker  is  not  supposed  to  exercise  any  power 
over  the  Rules  Committee.  On  that  point  the  revo- 
lution of  March  19,  1910,  was  fought  and  won  by 
the  reformers.  Actually  the  Steering  Committee,  of 
which  the  Speaker  is  essentially  a  member,  issues  in- 
structions to  the  Rules  Committee,  and  brings  to  bear 
upon  the  Rules  Committee  the  full  force  of  party  opin- 
ion as  it  is  concentrated  in  this  committee,  some  of 
whose  members  might  also  be  members  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Committees.*  It  is  a  system  which  has  not 
yet  been  employed  in  subverting  the  liberties  of  the 
individual  Member  of  the  House,  but  one  which  never- 

*In  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  Mr.  Mondell,  Mr.  Long- 
worth  and  Mr.  Dunn  were  members  of  both  committees. 


220        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

theless  contains  the  germ  of  a  new  despotism,  and 
one  more  sinister  than  the  old  for  the  reason  that  it 
works  not  in  the  light  of  publicity,  but  in  secrecy, 
and  is  so  complicated  as  to  defy  the  fixing  of  that 
responsibility  to  which  all  public  servants  should  be 
held. 

The  perfect  functioning  of  the  system  rests  upon 
the  harmony  of  opinion  among  the  leaders.  Working 
under  it  those  charged  with  the  duty  of  administer- 
ing the  business  of  the  House  have  sought  to  ascertain 
and  carry  out  the  will  of  the  House.  It  has  been  used 
to  enable  the  Houss  to  translate  into  legislative  action 
the  majority  opinion  of  the  House.  Thus  it  depends 
for  its  success  upon  cooperation  with  all  the  commit- 
tees of  the  House.  The  responsible  heads  of  commit- 
tees know  that  they  can  not  hope  to  get  very  far  with 
bills  that  may  be  reported  which  are  not  favored  by 
at  least  some  of  the  leaders  in  responsible  places.  It 
is  necessary,  therefore,  that  the  Floor  Leader  should 
be  alert  and  at  all  times  in  close  touch  with  the  senti- 
ment of  the  House,  and  in  constant  communication 
with  chairmen  whose  committees  may  be  considering 
bills  of  interest  to  the  House  and  to  the  country  as 
well  as  to  the  party. 

Since  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  the  Speaker,  as 
under  the  regime  of  Cannon,  to  prevent  violent  con- 
flicts of  opinion  in  the  House  by  the  expedient  of  sup- 
pressing in  committee  and  refusing  to  permit  to  come 
up  for  consideration  bills  calculated  to  provoke  dan- 
gerous controversy,  and  since  under  the  liberalized 
rules  of  the  House,  such  as  the  "Calendar  Wednesday" 
rule,  the  will  of  the  House  can  not  now  be  balked  as 
it  could  be  thwarted  in  the  days  of  Reed  and  Cannon, 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  221 

it  is  essential  that  differences  among  members  of  com- 
mittees arising  out  of  proposed  legislation,  or  differ- 
ences among  committees  which  may  be  in  conflict,  be 
reconciled  in  advance  of  action  upon  the  floor.  Upon 
the  orderly  conduct  of  the  business  of  legislation  on 
the  floor  may  depend  a  party  policy  or  the  election  of 
a  Congress  or  a  President. 

The  Steering  Committee,  or  as  it  frequently  hap- 
pens, the  Floor  Leader,  upon  whom  much  of  this  work 
rests,  and  members  of  committees  considering  pros- 
pective legislation,  have  conferences  from  time  to 
time,  often  with  members  of  the  Rules  Committee. 
In  this  way  so  far  as  is  practicable  the  preliminary 
stages  of  legislative  enactment  are  carefully  super- 
vised. At  times  as  many  as  twenty-five  members  of 
the  House  who  are  particularly  interested  in  pending 
measures  will  be  called  into  conference  by  the  Floor 
Leader  for  the  composition  of  differences  which  have 
arisen,  or  which  may  arise.  It  does  not  always  fol- 
low that  the  Floor  Leader  is  in  accord  with  the  major- 
ity of  the  House.  For  that  matter  it  did  not  always 
happen  under  the  old  system  that  the  Speaker  was 
invariably  in  sympathy  with  the  majority  opinion  of 
the  House  on  a  matter  involving  a  question  of  wide- 
spread party  interest.  Previously,  under  Reed  and 
Cannon,  the  Speaker  in  the  end  could  balk  the  House 
of  its  desires  if  he  so  wished  to  do,  although  it  did 
not  necessarily  follow  that  he  would  do  so.  Under 
the  new  system  the  Floor  Leader  is  dependent  not 
upon  his  power  under  the  rules,  but  upjon  his_own  per- 
sonality and  character,  upon  the  esteem  in  which  he  is 
held  in~th*e  House  for  his  political  sagacity  and  his 
wisdom  as  a  statesman,  and  upon  the  natural  instincts 


222        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

which  prompt  men  belonging  to  a  party,  and  held  to- 
gether by  natural  selfish  instincts  for  mutual  protec- 
tion, for  his  success  in  harmonizing  differences  and 
thus  being  able  to  go  into  the  House  with  a  measure 
assured  of  sufficient  support  to  secure  its  enactment. 
In  this  way  Mr.  Mondell  during  the  Sixty-Sixth  and 
Sixty-Seventh  Congresses  succeeded  in  establishing  a 
truly  remarkable  record  of  successful  legislative  ac- 
complishment. Disintegration  of  Republican  strength 
in  the  House  after  bills  were  actually  under  debate 
was  of  rare  occurrence. 

The  successful  conduct  of  party  management  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  is  naturally  dependent 
upon  the  extent  and  the  reliability  of  the  information 
possessed  by  the  leaders  as  to  the  state  of  mind  of 
the  House.  This  was  as  true  of  the  old  system  as  it 
is  of  the  new.  Under  the  old  regime  the  Speaker,  and 
his  Floor  Leaders,  obtained  their  information  through 
the  "whip,"  a  Member,  thus  designated,  whose  duty 
it  was  to  round  up  Members  as  occasion  required,  to 
ascertain  how  they  would  vote,  or  to  instruct  them  in 
that  respectTancl  to  see  to  it  that  the  leaders  were  in- 
formed accurately  as  to  those  who  could  not  be 
counted  upon,  for  or  against  a  measure,  as  the  case 
might  be.  Under  the  new  regime  information  is  ob- 
tained in  a  more  formal  way,  and  in  one  which  gen- 
erally has  proved  more  satisfactory  to  the  member- 
ship of  the  House. 

Information  is  thus  obtained  sometimes  by  careful 
polls  of  delegations  by  states,  and  sometimes  through 
series  of  conferences  which  the  Floor  Leader  calls. 
In  this  way  the  latter  is  able  to  ascertain  whether 


INVISIBLE  GOVERNMENT  223 

the  majority  party  favors  or  opposes  a  given  measure, 
and  to  take  action  appropriate  to  the  situation. 

Under  the  new  system  the  Floor  Leader  and  the 
Steering  Committee  lack  the  power  to  compel  a  Mem- 
ber to  do  a  thing  against  his  judgment.  The  Mem- 
ber can  not  be  removed  from  a  committee  except  by 
action  of  the  House.  Hence  logic,  persuasion  and  the 
party  welfare  are  the  compelling  influences.  Mem- 
bers of  the  House  quickly  learn  that  in  such  a  body 
nothing  can  be  accomplished  except  by  cooperation. 
There  must  be  a  certain  amount  of  give  and  take,  an 
accommodation  of  interest,  a  yielding  here  for  the  sake 
of  a  gain  there.  The  Floor  Leader  becomes  the 
medium  through  which  the  friendliness  and  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  House  are  enabled  to  work  their 
way. 

Under  the  system  of  Reed  and  Cannon  the  House 
did  not  know  for  any  considerable  period  in  advance 
what  the  program  of  the  House  would  be.  Such 
knowledge  as  the  leaders  had  they  kept  to  themselves 
for  good  and  sufficient  reasons.  Advance  information 
might  enable  opposition  to  become  strong  enough  to 
overturn  the  most  carefully  laid  plans.  Such  a  condi- 
tion was  bad  for  the  House  in  that  it  did  not  enable 
Members  to  prepare  in  advance  for  the  work  on  the 
floor  they  might  be  called  upon  to  do.  In  the  clos- 
ing days  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  Congress  the  Floor  Leader 
began  to  give  notice  by  word  of  mouth  of  what  might 
be  expected  on  the  prggram  for  a  few  days  in  ad- 
vance, and  later  for  a  number  of  days  in  advance. 
In  the  following  Congress  the  Floor  Leader  inaugu- 
rated the  policy  of 'posting  a  tentative  program  for 


224        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

a  week  in  advance,  and  not  long  after  a  copy  of  the 
program  for  the  following  week  was  sent  to  each 
Member  on  Friday  or  Saturday.  It  was  not  always 
possible  to  carry  this  program  out  exactly,  but  Mem- 
bers were  given  reasonably  accurate  information,  and 
had  time  to  prepare  for  the  consideration  on  the 
floor  of  bills  which  might  not  have  been  considered  by 
committees  of  which  they  were  members,  but  in  which 
their  constituents  were  interested.  This  program  is 
prepared  by  the  Floor  Leader  after  conferences  with 
the  Steering  Committee,  the  Speaker,  and  chairmen 
of  committees.  The  Speaker  is  kept  informed  of  all 
plans,  since  he  is  presiding  officer  of  the  House  as 
well  as  a  Member  of  the  House,  but  under  the  new 
system  the  Floor  Leader  has  become  the  general  man- 
ager of  his  party  in  the  House,  the  counselor  of  his 
colleagues,  the  harmonizer  of  their  conflicting  opin- 
ions, their  servant,  but  not  their  master. 

The  advantage  of  the  new  system  lies  in  its 
greater  flexibility  and  its  friendlier  democracy.  The 
House  is  freer  under  the  new  regime  than  under  the 
old.  With  democratization  has  come  a  consciousness 
of  power  and  a  greater  intellectual  integrity. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE 

IP  THE  power  of  organized  leadership  under  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  was  annihilated  by  the  revo- 
lution of  1910  and  the  subsequent  Democratic  reforms 
which  followed  that  initial  triumph  of  liberalism,  the 
prestige  of  the  lower  branch  of  the  legislative  body 
was  much  enhanced  by  certain  new  rules -adopted  from 
the  Sixty-Second  to  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  jre.- 
lating jo  the^exercise^f  the jippr opriating^ power.  Not 
in  all  its  history  had  the  House  so  firmly  insisted  upon 
preserving  its  great  prerogative  under  the  Constitution 
as  during  this  period. 

By  successive  steps  the  House  of  Representatives 
consolidated  its  constitutional  powersjvith  respect  to 
the  public  Treasury,  until  at  the  close  of  the  fiscal  year 
1922,  when  the  supply  bills  for  the  ensuing  twelve 
months  had  been  enacted,  the  House  stood  supreme 
and  dominant  in  its  control  of  the  public  funds,  and 
in  an  entirely  new  relationship  to  the  Senate,  which 
had  sustained  a  serious~blow.  In  many  "essential  re- 
spects the  House  of  Representatives  had  never  been 
stronger  than  at  this  time. 

This  significant  increase  in  the  dignity  of  the 
House,  which  made  it  by  far  the  stronger  of  the  two 
bodies  of  Congress,  was  produced,  with  respect  to  the 
appropriating  power,  by  the  adoption  of  three  rules, 

225 


226        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

two  of  them  growing  out  of  the  establishment  for  the 
first  time  of  a  federal  budget — although  indeed  there 
had  been  in  the  House  up  to  the  Thirty-Ninth  Congress 
a  single  committee  having  jurisdiction  over  both  reve- 
nues and  expenditures,  which  virtually  amounted  to  a 
budget  committee. 

Under  this  single  committee,  reporting  both  revenue 
bills  and  appropriation  bills,  the  fiscal  power  of  the 
House  closely  centralized,  the  Civil  War  had  been 
financed.  With  Thaddeus  Stevens  at  its  head,  and  its 
members  including  the  ablest  men  of  the  House,  di- 
rectly and  immediately  responsible  to  and  responsive 
to  the  majority,  this  committee  visualized  at  a  single 
glance  the  needs  of  the  government  as  a  whole,  and 
then  levied  the  taxes  to  raise  the  money  to  meet  them. 
It  was  a  method  at  once  businesslike  and  economical, 
and  the  House  under  the  able  Speakership  of  Mr.  Col- 
fax  functioned  without  loss  of  effort,  without  panic 
and  without  extravagance. 

When  this  committee  was  finally^jdivided,  and  the 
appropriating  power  transferred  to  a  single  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  of  which  Mr.  Stevens  by  his  own 
choice  and  the  desire  of  the  leadership  became  the 
head,  the  business  of  the  House  had  increased  so  enor- 
mously as  to  render  this  reform  imperative  in  the 
opinion  of  the  men  then  responsible  for  its  orderly 
conduct.  But  the  immense  labors  of  Congress,  the 
multiplicity  of  details  with  which  it  was  obliged  to 
deal,  were  as  nothing  compared  with  what  they 
afterward  grew  to  be.  The  House  met  the  increasing 
burden  of  responsibility  not  by  a  consolidation  of  power 
with  respect  to  the  public  budget,  but  by  a  further 
dissipation  of  that  power.  In  1885  the  power  of  the 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        227 

House  was  weakened,  under  the  speakership  of  Mr.  ; 
Carlisle,  by  action  taking  a  part  of  the  appropriating 
function  from  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and 
distributing  it  'among  a  number  of  legislative  com- 
mittees, and  in  this  way  the  Committees  on  Military 
Affairs,  Naval  Affairs,  Post-Offices  and  Post-Roads, 
Agriculture,  Indian  Affairs  and  Foreign  Affairs,  were 
authorized  to  bring  in  their  own  supply  bills.  Mr. 
Cannon,  denying  that  this  was  a  reform,  declared  that 
the  changes  in  the  rules  of  the  House  in  this  respect 
were  made  by  the  Democratic  leaders  to  punish  Samuel 
J.  Randall,  chairman  of  the  Appropriations  Committee, 
for  his  insurgency  on  the  tariff,  and  that  the  innovation 
was  encouraged  by  the  members  of  President  Cleve- 
land's Cabinet  to  curb  the  power  of  the  forceful  Penn- 
sylvanian,  and  probably  because  they  saw  the 
advantage  to  the  executive  departments.  "It  was," 
says  Mr.  Cannon,  "the  beginning  of  executive  inter- 
ference in  legislation  which  has  led  to  executive  domi- 
nance in  legislation  for  appropriations  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  spenders  instead  of  the  demands  of  the 
taxpayers."  *  Under  the  new  plan  begun  in  1885 
there  was  an  appalling  increase  in  appropriations,  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  increase  in  the  population  of 
the  country. 

Each  of  the  committees  having  appropriating  au- 
thority became  a  special  pleader  for  special  govern- 
mental interests.  Each  committee  had  a  restricted 
vision,  and  none  saw  the  nation  as  a  whole.  The 
Military  Affairs  Committee  was  wholly  concerned  with 
the  military  establishment,  the  Committee  on  Agricul- 
ture with  the  particular  subjects  coming  within  its 

*Harper's  Magazine,  October,  1919. 


purview.  Departmental  influence  increased,  and  ap- 
propriation bills  became  the  carriers  of  legislative 
enactments  having  no  place  in  them.  Policies  of  the 
government  were  made  in  supply  bills,  which  became 
the  vehicles  of  bureaucratic  fads  and  follies.  The  sys- 
tem led  to  a  saturnalia  of  spending,  a  debauch  of  ex- 
travagance. 

The  establishment  of  a  budget  became  a  necessity, 
and  was  advocated  by  Democratic  chairmen  of  the 
Appropriations  Committee  as  early  as  1910.  The 
Sixty-Sixth  Congress  passed  a  budget  act,  which  origi- 
nated in  the  Republican  House,  but  which  President 
Wilson  vetoed  because  Congress  insisted  upon  retain- 
ing the  power  to  remove  the  Comptroller  of  the  Treas- 
ury. With  the  advent  of  President  Harding  the 
measure  was  reenacted,  and  became  a  law,  with  the 
provision  to  which  Mr.  Wilson  had  been  opposed,  and 
which  contains  the  germ  of  a  possible  conflict  in  the 
future  between  the  Congress  and  the  Executive. 

The  establishment  of  the  budget  system  made  it 
necessary  for  the  House  to  change  its  rules  with  re- 
spect to  the  committee  organization,  in  order  that  it 
might  properly  function.  Obviously  there  could  be  no 
true  budget  with  a  scattered  appropriating  power  in 
the  House,  and  so  that  power  was  concentrated  in  a 
single  Committee  on  Appropriations,  which  was  in- 
creased from  a  membership  of  twenty-one  to  thirty- 
five,  in  lieu  of  the  eight  separate  committees  which 
up  to  that  time  had  exercised  the  appropriating 
authority. 

The  establishment  of  the  budget,  and  the  modifica- 
tion of  the  rules  essential  to  its  proper  administration, 
alone  would  furnish  testimony  of  the  high  order  of 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        229 

intelligence  in  the  leadership  of  the  Sixty-Sixth  and 
Sixty-Seventh  Congresses,  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
assume  that  this  forward  step  toward  the  stabilization 
of  the  national  fiscal  system  was  taken  by  the  House 
upon  its  own  initiative,  or  to  imagine  that  the  inci- 
dental reorganization  of  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions was  accomplished  without  the  exertion  to  their 
full  extent  of  those  reduced  elements  of  power  still 
left  in  the  leadership  of  the  House  under  the  Republi- 
can scheme  of  management.  Mr.  Mondell  and  his  asso- 
ciates, chief  among  whom  was  Representative  James 
W^Good,  of  Iowa,  who,  as  chairman  of  Appropriations 
must  be_given  the  greater  part  of  the  credit  for  putting 
this  reform  through  to  a  successful  conclusion,  won  no 
easy~vTcJory.  The  House  acted,  in  this  instance,  as  it 
had  acted  so  often  before,  and  notably  in  the  depriva- 
tion of  the  Speaker  of  all  his  powers,  in  response  to 
pressure  from  the  country.  It  did  not  accept  the 
change  without  resistance,  and  it  was  in  overcoming 
that  resistance  through  the  power  of  persuasion,  the 
chief  power  left  to  it,  that  the  Republican  leadership 
of  the  House  achieved  its  most  signal  moral  triumph, 
and  demonstrated  the  value  of  the  new  regime.  No 
more  intelligent  action  could  have  been  taken  by  the 
highly  centralized  and  absolute  power  of  the  speak- 
ership. 

Under  Mr.  Mondell, 'and  Mr.  Good,  the  leadership 
of  the  House  was  able  to  bring  about  a  complete  separa- 
tion of  the  Appropriations  Committee  and  the  legisla- 
tive committees  which  formerly  had  exercised  the 
appropriating  power.  This  it  accomplished  by  creat- 
ing an  enlarged  Committee  on  Appropriations  by  add- 
ing to  the  old  committee  certain  members  of  the 


230        THE  LEADERSHIP  OP  CONGRESS 

legislative  committees,  but  in  no  instance  a  chairman 
of  such  a  committee,  and  in  depriving  those  who  thus 
became  members  of  Appropriations  of  membership  on 
the  legislative  committees.  When  Mr.  Good  retired 
from  the  chairmanship  of  the  enlarged  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  the  Republican  leadership  did  not 
hesitate  to  break  the  long-established  precedent  with 
respect  to  seniority,  in  choosing  as  the  new  chairman 
a  man  whose  place  was  well  down  on  the  committee 
roll. 

There  was  almost  open  insurgency  in  the  House 
as  this  reform  went  into  effect.  Members  of  those 
legislative  committees,  such  as  Military  Affairs  and 
Naval  Affairs,  saw  with  chagrin  the  passing  into  the 
hands  of  others  of  a  great  power  which  formerly  had 
been  their  own,  for  there  is  no  greater  power  in  any 
legislative  body,  nor  has  been  since  the  reign  of  the 
Stuart  kings,  than  the  power  over  the  public  purse. 
Each  Member  of  the  House  who  shares  the  appropri- 
ating function  shares  also  in  the  power  which  rests 
in  the  House  as  a  whole. 

The  custom  which  had  grown  up  in  the  past  of 
making  the  great  supply  bills  the  vehicles  for  an  enor- 
mous mass  of  legislation  had  not  failed  to  elevate  mem- 
bers of  those  committees  to  places  of  unique  distinc- 
tion. Those  who  framed  the  naval  and  army  bills,  and 
the  bills  providing  funds  for  the  post-office,  and  the 
agricultural  departments,  enjoyed  a  very  great  influ- 
ence in  those  departments  of  the  government.  They 
not  only  granted  the  moneys  from  the  Treasury,  but 
they  very  largely  wrote  the  laws.  All  this  was  now 
altered.  The  first  appropriation  bills  passed  under 
the  budget  were  remarkably  free  from  legislation. 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        231 

Thus  it  was  argued  that  eventually  the  legislative 
committees  which  had  been  shorn  of  the  appropriating 
power  would  come  into  a  new  power  in  the  House  in 
consequence  of  their  ability  to  devote  all  their  time  to 
the  study  of  special  departmental  problems  and  the 
writing  of  special  legislative  bills.  But  while  it  was 
true  that  the  appropriation  acts  passed  for  the  first 
time  under  the  budget  system  were  singularly  free 
from  legislative  "riders,"  it  must  also  be  remembered 
that  a  governmental  policy  can  be  laid  down  in  an  ap- 
propriation law  as  effectually  as  in  any  other  statute, 
however  indirectly  it  may  be  done.  To  impose  a  limita- 
tion on  an  expenditure  is  to  define  a  policy ;  to  restrict 
the  navy  to  a  certain  specified  sum  for  submarines  is 
to  determine  the  government's  policy  with  regard  to 
undersea  craft  as  effectually  as  though  it  were  done 
in  a  strictly  legislative  statute.  It  would  be  of  little 
avail  for  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  to  report  a 
bill  fixing  the  enlisted  personnel  of  the  navy  at  one 
hundred  thousand  men  if  the  Appropriations  Commit- 
tee should  bring  in  and  secure  the  passage  of  an  act 
making  provision  for  the  pay  and  subsistence  of  only 
eighty  thousand,  in  terms  prohibiting,  as  it  has  the 
power  to  prohibit,  the  department  officials  from  ex- 
ceeding that  appropriation  or  incurring  a  deficiency. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  on  the  whole  the  House  sur- 
rendered back  to  a  centralized  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations, which  formerly  had  possessed  it,  an  enor- 
mous part  of  the  power  of  the  House. 

Yet  in  creating  a  single  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions, a  step  in  return  to  the  system  of  a  single  budget 
committee — Ways  and  Means — which  had  existed  until 
the  Thirty-Ninth  Congress,  the  House  had  not  weak- 


232        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ened  itself,  but  had  very  much  strengthened  itself, 
both  in  respect  of  its  relationship  with  the  President, 
and  with  the  Senate,  which  was,  incidentally,  obliged 
to  reorganize  its  own  Committee  on  Appropriations  by 
creating  a  new,  but  somewhat  less  centralized  body. 

The  budget  system,  as  established  and  as  put  into 
effect  bid  fair  to  make  the  House  of  Representatives 
absolute  in  matters  concerned  with  the  appropriation 
of  funds  from  the  Federal  Treasury.  Many  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  budgetary  reform  had  conceived  of  the  bud- 
get as  an  executive  institution.  The  House  calmly 
ignored  this  view  of  it,  and  established  and  used  the 
budget  as  an  institution  of  the  legislative  branch  of 
the  government,  under  the  broad  grant  of  the  Consti- 
tution. 

When  President  Harding  sent  to  Congress  the  first 
estimates  under  the  budget,  estimates  which  were  re- 
markably strong  in  the  exceptional  power  of  gen- 
eralization manifested  therein,  but  weak  in  details,  he 
disclosed  in  a  most  striking  manner  the  extent  of  his 
lack  of  appreciation  of  the  psychology  of  the  Congress 
which  had  been  elected  as  a  part  of  the  manifestation 
of  the  reaction  against  the  dominating  presidency  of 
Mr.  Wilson.  He  did  not  seem  to  appreciate  how 
strongly  the  tide  was  running  in  the  direction  of  a 
strong  Congress,  or  how  greatly  the  Congress  with 
which  he  had  to  deal  was  influenced  by  its  subconscious 
determination  to  exert  its  powers  and  exercise  its 
functions.  The  President  desired,  and  permitted  his 
views  to  become  public,*  that  Congress  should  not 
make  "any  substantial  changes  in  the  estimates" 
which  were  submitted  to  that  body. 

*New  York  Tribune,  December  14,  1921. 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        233 

With  this  view  there  was  absolutely  no  sympathy 
in  the  House,  which  had  no  intention  of  surrendering 
its  constitutional  prerogative  over  the  federal  purse 
into  the  hands  of  the  Executive.  No  more  astounding 
theory  of  government  could  well  be  enunciated.  No 
Congress  could  accept  a  budget  prepared  by  a  bureau 
chief  in  the  Treasury  Department,  and  translate  it  into 
law,  without  the  surrender  of  that  weapon  with  which 
an  Anglo-Saxon  Parliament  had  first  wrung  liberty 
from  headstrong  royalty. 

The  budget  system  in  Congress  was  distinctively 
Progressive  in  its  inception.  It  was  brought  about 
as  a  part  of  the  effect  of  the  reform  movement  which 
had  overthrown  the  old  inflexible  regime  in  1910.  It 
grew  out  of  the  liberalization  of  the  rules  of  the  House. 
Mr.  Good,  who  had  fathered  the  reform  and  had  car- 
ried it  to  a  successful  conclusion,  had  been  elected  to 
the  House  in  the  Sixty-First  Congress  in  consequence 
of  the  sentiment  in  Iowa  favorable  to  the  reformation 
of  the  Republican  party  under  Speaker  Cannon.  He 
went  to  the  House  with  a  definite  object  in  view.  He 
had  voted,  on  March  19, 1910,  for  the  Norris  Resolution 
which  had  marked  the  downfall  of  the  speakership. 
He  had  carried  out  his  ideas  when  he  had  been  ad- 
vanced to  the  head  of  the  Appropriations  Committee. 
The  adoption  of  the  budget  system  by  the  House  was 
not  reactionary,  but  liberal,  but  liberalism  in  the  House 
never  meant  the  weakening  of  the  House,  but  was 
concerned  with  the  enhancement  of  its  powers.  Hence 
the  House  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  was  of  no 
mind  to  surrender  any  of  its  authority,  obtained  from 
the  organic  law,  into  the  hands  of  the  Executive.  The 
reaction  against  its  "rubber  stamp"  days  was  in  full 


234        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

swing.  The  Appropriations  Committee  considered  the 
budget  which  the  President  submitted  as  being  a  more 
scientifically  prepared  book  of  estimates  than  it  was 
accustomed  to  receive  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury at  the  beginning  of  each  December  session.  That 
was  all.  The  usual  hearings  took  place,  department 
and  bureau  heads  were  examined  in  the  formal  man- 
ner, and  in  spite  of  the  care  which  had  been  expended 
upon  the  preparation  of  the  budget,  the  committee  took 
in  all  twenty  thousand  printed  pages  of  testimony.  In 
the  end  it  reduced  the  budget  estimates  by  many  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  and  also  added  a  few  millions  for 
items  which  had  not  been  included  in  the  budget  esti- 
mates. The  total  net  reductions  from  the  regular  and 
the  supplemental  and  deficiency  estimates  of  the  bud- 
get, made  in  the  various  appropriation  acts  for  1923 
as  finally  enacted  into  law  amounted  to  $312,172,292.27, 
or  a  decrease  of  approximately  seven  per  cent,  in  the 
total  amount  requested.*  The  Congress,  in  its  first 
enactments  under  the  federal  budget,  had  asserted  its 
independence  and  had  quietly  enhanced  its  power  in  its 
relation  to  the  Executive.  It  had  demonstrated  that 
under  a  buget  system  it  could  preserve  its  great  con- 
stitutional right  unimpaired,  and  that  there  would  be 
no  yielding  or  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people.  It  was  clear  that  any  hope  which 
might  have  been  entertained  anywhere  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  executive  budget  must  be  abandoned. 
The  House  had  not  only  maintained,  but  had  tightened 
its  hold  upon  the  strong  box  of  the  nation. 

The  sharpest  clash  of  powers  between  the  House 


* Congressional  Record,  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  second  ses- 
sion, p.  11065. 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        235 

and  the  Executive  occurred  over  the  appropriations  for 
the  army  and  navy.  In  both  instances  large  reductions 
were  made  below  the  budget  estimates,  despite  the 
pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  Congress  by  President 
Harding,  whose  psychic  blindness  prevented  him  from 
seeing  that  the  determination  of  the  House  to  bring 
the  provisions  for  the  naval  and  military  establish- 
ments within  the  program  of  economy  was  due  to  that 
very  pacificism  in  the  country  which  he  himself  so 
assiduously  cultivated  in  order  to  facilitate  the  ratifica- 
tion by  the  Senate  of  the  pacifist  treaties  of  disarma- 
ment and  alliance  which  had  come  from  the  Washington 
Conference.  The  President's  pacifist  speech  on  the 
occasion  of  the  burial  of  the  Unknown  Soldier  had 
sounded  the  only  key-note  to  which  Congress  would 
respond,  and  the  subsequent  efforts  of  Mr.  Harding  to 
advocate  a  policy  of  national  surrender  at  the  Senate 
and  of  national  defense  at  the  House,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  inevitably  ended  in  fiasco  so  far  as  con- 
certed action  upon  an  administration  policy  was  con- 
cerned. The  House  emerged  from  this  encounter  with 
the  executive  will  immeasurably  strengthened.  It  had 
written  down  in  unmistakable  words  whose  meaning 
was  plain  to  all  who  cared  to  read,  the  bold  assertion 
of  the  right  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  shape 
national  policies  through  the  exercise  of  the  appropri- 
ating power.  The  Republican  party  was  true  to  the 
faith  which  had  been  founded  by  Henry  Clay.  Con- 
gress held  both  the  sword  and  the  purse. 

In  only  two  major  instances  did  the  House  in  this 
Congress  increase  the  amounts  reported  by  the  com- 
mittee. In  both  the  motive  actuating  it  was  not  flatter- 
ing. The  House  added  some  millions  to  the  items  mak- 


236        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ing  provision  for  internal  improvements  in  rivers  and 
harbors,  and  granted  a  larger  sum  for  the  navy  than 
the  committee  had  recommended.  Selfish  local  con- 
siderations largely  produced  the  votes  necessary  to 
the  accomplishment  of  this  overriding  of  the  com- 
mittee, but  the  experience  of  the  House  with  the  cen- 
tralization of  appropriating  power  operating  under  a 
budget  very  clearly  showed  that  a  far  better  system 
than  the  old  one  had  been  devised  for  the  elimination 
of  those  grossly  wasteful  and  demoralizing  measures 
known  as  "pork  barrel"  bills,  through  which,  in  the 
past,  the  leadership  of  the  House  had  paid  off  its  debts. 
With  respect  to  the  Senate  the  aggrandizement  of 
the  power  of  the  House,  in  the  matter  of  appropria- 
tions, was  equally  significant.  The  budget  was  one  of 
three  reforms  established  between  1911  and  1921 
through  which  the  supremacy  of  the  House  had  been 
emphasized.  The  second  was  a  return,  in  the  Sixty- 
Second  Congress,  to  a  radical  rule  relating  to  the  in- 
clusion of  legislation  in  appropriation  acts,  which  had 
been  in  force  many  years  previously.  As  early  as 
1835  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  had 
suggested  the  advisability  of  a  plan  under  which  the 
supply  bills  should  "be  stripped  of  everything  but  the 
appropriations,"  and  in  the  year  following  the  House 
considered  a  rule  providing  that  "no  appropriation 
shall  be  reported  in  such  general  appropriation  bills, 
or  be  in  order  as  an  amendment  thereto,  for  any  ex- 
penditure not  authorized  by  law."  It  was  not  adopted 
at  that  time,  but  in  1837  the  situation  became  so  seri- 
ous that  Mr.  John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  secured  the  adop- 
tion of  a  "rider"  to  the  fortifications  bill  providing 
for  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  in  the  Federal  Treas- 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        237 

ury.  This  caused  the  defeat  of  the  bill  in  the  Senate, 
and  the  House  thereupon  adopted  the  rule  which  had 
been  proposed  in  1836.  This  rule  substantially  re- 
mained in  effect  until  1876,  when  at  the  suggestion  of 
Mr.  William  S.  Holman,  of  Indiana,  it  was  amended 
to  provide,  in  effect,  that  no  appropriation  should  be 
reported  in  a  bill,  or  should  be  in  order  as  an  amend- 
ment, for  any  expenditure  not  previously  authorized 
by  law,  and  that  no  provision  or  amendment  changing 
existing  law  should  be  in  order  except  such,  as  being 
germane,  should  retrench  expenditures.  Although 
there  was  jealousy  "of  increased  power  which  might 
come  to  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  as  a  result 
of  the  rule"*  it  was  agreed  to,  and  remained  in  force 
a  short  time,  afterward  being  dropped,  except  during 
the  Fifty-Second  and  Fifty-Third  Congresses,  when  it 
was  again  adopted.  Then,  beginning  with  the  Fifty- 
Fourth  Congress,  it  passed  out,  and  was  not  a  part  of 
the  rules  of  the  House  for  sixteen  years.  The  Demo- 
cratic party  restored  the  rule  in  the  revision  of  the 
rules  in  the  Sixty-Second  Congress,  and  it  was  retained 
by  the  Republicans  when  they  returned  to  control  in 
the  House.  Thus  the  -centralized  Committee  on  Ap- 
propriations, operating  under  the  budget,  was  further 
fortified  by  a  rule  which  forty-five  years  earlier  had 
aroused  a  fear  in  the  House  that  it  might  give  increased 
power  to  that  committee  at  a  time  when  it  was  scarcely 
as  strong  as  the  committee  of  the  present  day. 

Operating  under  such  a  rule  the  power  of  the  Ap- 
propriations Committee  to  enforce  the  most  rigid 
economy  was  largely  enhanced.  Under  it  if  one  of  the 
legislative  committees  desired,  in  working  out  a  depart- 

*Hinds'  Precedents,  Vol.  IV,  p.  383. 


238        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

mental  problem,  to  offer  an  amendment  to  an  appro- 
priation bill  from  the  floor,  that  amendment,  to  be  in 
order,  would  have  to  produce  a  retrenchment  in  ex- 
penditure, and  obviously  such  amendments  are  not 
generally  desired  by  the  departments.  All  the  sub- 
treasuries  of  the  United  States  were  finally  abolished 
under  this  rule,  and  a  reform  in  the  administrative 
branch  of  the  government  accomplished  with  the  re- 
sult that  large  savings  were  made  possible. 

The  third  rule  was  adopted  by  the  House  to  check 
encroachments  by  the  Senate  upon  its  constitutional 
prerogative  with  respect  to  the  appropriation  of  money 
from  the  Federal  Treasury,  or,  rather,  the  interpreta- 
tion of  its  prerogative  which  the  lower  body  had  in- 
sistently, persistently  and  consistently  placed  upon  it 
during  a  long  period  of  years.  Under  section  7  of 
Article  I  of  the  Constitution  it  is  provided  that  "all 
bills  for  raising  revenue  shall  originate  in  the  House 
of  Representatives;  but  the  Senate  may  propose  or 
concur  with  amendments  as  on  other  bills."  From  the 
beginning  the  House  insisted  upon  the  right  to  origi- 
nate all  the  general  appropriation  bills,  and  the  Senate 
acquiesced,  without  actually  conceding  the  point.  The 
principle  to  which  the  House  adhered  was  predicated 
upon  the  theory  that  the  words  "raising  revenue"  must 
include  all  bills  appropriating  money  to  the  use  of  the 
government,  as  well  as  bills  for  levying  and  collecting 
taxes ;  that  the  phrase  "bills  for  raising  revenue"  was 
the  equivalent  of  "money  bills,"  which  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  at  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the 
American  government,  included  bills  of  appropriation. 

While  the  House  repeatedly  engaged  in  conflict  with 
the  Senate  and  refused  to  admit  the  right  of  that  body 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        239 

to  originate  a  bill  for  raising  revenue,  or  for  the  ap- 
propriation of  money  except  in  special  bills,  actually 
the  Senate  exercised  great  authority  in  shaping  all 
kinds  of  fiscal  legislation  through  the  right  of  amend- 
ment. Tariff  bills  were  often  practically  rewritten  by 
the  Finance  Committee,  and  appropriation  bills  came 
to  be  fairly  loaded  down  in  the  Senate  with  amend- 
ments carrying  vast  sums  for  all  sorts  of  purposes. 
Generally  such  amendments  were  not  considered  in  the 
Senate  with  that  care  which  the  supply  bills  neces- 
sarily received  in  the  House,  and  great  extravagance 
resulted. 

When  the  bills  thus  amended  by  the  Senate  went  to 
conference  the  conferees  on  the  part  of  the  House  had 
the  right,  if  they  so  desired,  to  accept  them,  and  thus 
such  amendments  came  to  be  accepted  in  conference, 
and  the  House  had  only  the  privilege  of  voting  for  or 
against  the  conference  report.  The  practise  also  grew 
of  agreements  in  conference  upon  items  which  had 
appeared  in  neither  the  House  nor  the  Senate  bills, 
which  amounted  to  legislation  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  the  country  and  the  taxpayers  by  the  joint  com- 
mittee on  conference.  It  was  a  very  great  abuse  of 
the  appropriating  power  of  Congress,  and  weakened 
the  broad  authority  granted  to  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives by  the  Constitution. 

In  1920  the  House  took  another  advanced  step  in 
the  direction  of  the  strengthening  of  its  powers,  when 
it  adopted  a  new  rule  providing  that  no  amendment 
of  the  Senate  to  a  general  appropriation  bill  "which 
would  be  in  violation  of  the  provisions  of  clause  2  of 
Rule  XXI,*  if  said  amendment  had  originated  in  the 


"The  "Holman  Rule." 


240        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

House,  nor  any  amendment  of  the  Senate  providing 
for  an  appropriation  upon  any  bill  other  than  a  gen- 
eral appropriation  bill,  shall  be  agreed  to  by  the  mana- 
gers on  the  part  of  the  House  unless  specific  authority 
to  agree  to  such  amendment  shall  be  first  given  by  the 
House  by  a  separate  vote  on  every  such  amendment." 
By  these  changes  in  the  rules  the  House  had  tightened 
its  control  of  every  dollar  in  the  Federal  Treasury.  The 
powers,  real  and  assumed,  under  the  Constitution,  had 
been  consolidated.  With  respect  to  the  raising  and 
expenditure  of  the  public  funds  the  House  stood  su- 
preme, and  the  power  of  the  Senate  had  been  curtailed. 

This  great  exercise  of  power  by  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives sprang  from  the  fuller  consciousness  of 
its  dignity  and  prestige  which  had  come  from  the  liber- 
alization of  its  structure  of  government.  The  reform 
was  carried  out  by  the  new  regime  which  had  been 
established  upon  the  wreckage  of  the  old.  The  House 
had  never  been  more  strong  or  more  majestic. 

The  concentration  of  so  great  a  power  in  a  single 
committee,  and  that  committee  fortified  by  new  rules 
and  operating  under  a  budget  system,  had  the  inevi- 
table effect  of  making  the  chairman  of  Appropriations 
the  second  strongest  figure  in  the  House.  Next  to  Mr. 
Mondell,  the  conciliatory  Floor  Leader,  Martin  B. 
Madden,  of  Illinois,  towered  in  the  new  House  like  one 
\  of  the  giants  of  the  past.  Not  since  the  passing  of 
that  mighty  dictator,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  the  man  of 
iron  will  and  ruthless  force  who  had  financed  the 
Civil  War,  had  the  House  seen  so  great  a  tower  of 
strength  at  the  head  of  any  committee  as  it  now  beheld 
in  the  master  of  this  great  super-committee,  before 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        241 

which  the  Senate  was  to  bow  and  to  which  it  was 
to  yield. 

For  the  first  time  since  Joseph  G.  Cannon  had  been 
tumbled  from  the  throne  of  Elaine  and  Reed  there  was 
an  individual  in  the  House  who  could  put  on  his  hat 
and  walk  to  the  other  end  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and 
talk  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  eye  to  eye 
and  man  to  man  in  the  plain,  blunt  language  of  "yes" 
and  "no."  Plain  and  blunt  himself,  this  he  did,  and 
the  President  saw  the  budget  in  which  he  had  taken 
such  worthy  pride  slashed  by  the  pruning  knife  of  the 
economists  on  Capitol  Hill.  Given  to  plain  facts 
and  blunt  language,  Mr.  Madden  had  courage,  but 
he  had  something  more,  a  committee  behind  him 
well  organized  and  determined.  When  the  chair- 
man spoke  he  spoke  for  the  committee.  He  could 
tell  the  President  what  the  committee  would 
do,  because  he  knew  what  the  committee  could  do.  Mr. 
Mondell  could  not  speak  thus  plainly  and  with  such 
finality  because  he  could  not  answer  for  the  House.  He 
could  ascertain,  and  report,  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
House,  but  he  could  not  pretend  to  dominate  the  House ; 
but  Madden  spoke  for  the  most  powerful  committee 
the  House  of  Representatives  had  ever  known.  When 
the  Appropriations  Committee  had  framed  a  naval  bill 
to  carry  out  the  terms  of  the  disarmament  treaty,  and 
it  carried  a  sum  deemed  inadequate  by  the  navy  and 
by  those  susceptible  to  the  political  influence  of  navy 
yards,  the  President  went  over  the  head  of  the  com- 
mittee which  was  making  a  record  in  retrenchment, 
and  saving  the  administration  from  a  disastrous  deficit 
at  the  end  of  the  fiscal  year,  and,  appealing  to  the 


242        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

House  itself,  brought  about  the  only  serious  repudia- 
tion which  the  committee  sustained.  But  Mr.  Harding 
achieved  his  desire,  at  least  in  some  measure,  at  the 
expense  of  the  solidarity  of  his  own  party  in  the  House. 
Unwittingly  the  President  contributed  ammunition  to 
the  critics  of  Congress.  Many  of  these  were  in  the 
executive  department  of  the  government,  and  it  was, 
perhaps,  natural  for  them  to  seek  to  place  upon  Con- 
gress responsibility  for  party  mishaps  which  grew  out 
of  the  unsettled  state  of  opinion  in  the  nation;  some 
were  in  the  country  at  large,  who  brought  to  bear 
against  the  House  their  batteries  of  fault-finding  either 
because  they  feared  its  rising  power,  or  else  but  dimly 
and  imperfectly  perceived  the  splendid  work  of  recon- 
struction of  legislative  responsibility  which  the  House 
was  slowly  accomplishing  under  the  new  system. 
Psychologically  the  criticism  of  Congress  in  the  early 
months  of  the  administration  of  Mr.  Harding  was  a 
reaction  from  the  parliamentary  revolution  which  had 
destroyed  dictatorship  in  the  popular  legislative 
branch,  a  reaction  which  aimed,  doubtless  subcon- 
sciously in  many  minds,  and  more  consciously  in 
others,  at  the  restoration  of  that  central  force  which 
could  hold  men  within  the  bounds  of  party  fealty,  and 
at  the  revision  of  all  those  changes  in  the  governmental 
system  which  had  liberalized  not  only  the  House,  but 
the  Senate  as  well. 

Doubtless  to  those  in  executive  places  the  House 
seemed  out  of  hand.  The  independence  which  it  mani- 
fested from  the  beginning  was  a  phenomenon  which 
had  not  been  anticipated.  Measure  after  measure 
which  the  administration  proposed,  policies  deemed 
essential  to  its  success,  were  ignored  or  altered.  The 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        243 

President  was  handicapped  by  unfamiliarity  with  the 
House  under  its  existing  system,  which  was,  indeed, 
quite  new  even  to  the  Members  of  the  House  them- 
selves. He  was  at  a  disadvantage  in  that  there  was  in 
the  House  no  such  dominant  power  as  had  enabled  Mr. 
Roosevelt  to  transact  so  much  of  his  legislative  busi- 
ness with  despatch.  But  psychologically  he  had  no 
contact  with  the  real  mind  of  the  House,  and  in  this 
lay  the  greatest  source  of  his  discomfiture.  Not  nat- 
urally gifted  with  sharp  political  instincts,  he  failed  to 
perceive  the  influences  in  the  nation  which  were  im- 
pelling the  actions  of  the  House,  most  of  whose  Mem- 
bers were  responding  to  tremendous  movements  among 
the  people,  so  indefinite  at  yet  as  to  be  comprehended 
not  by  the  mind,  but  only  by  the  senses.  At  a  moment 
when  progressivism  was  reawakening  the  President 
announced  his  dislike  of  the  primary  system.  While 
declaring  in  one  breath  his  reverence  for  the  Constitu- 
tion he  would  in  another  let  slip  some  careless  word 
which  showed  the  existence  of  some  blind-spot  in  his 
constitutional  perceptions.  Often  actuated  by  a  pro- 
foundly solemn  desire  to  preserve  the  delicate  balance 
between  Legislative  and  Executive  he  would  refrain 
from  an  executive  act  of  suggestion,  which  would  have 
been  wholly  permissible,  until  his  opportunity  to  guide 
and  influence  the  House  had  passed,  only  to  assume  a 
role  of  leadership  when  it  was  everlastingly  too  late. 
Meanwhile  the  House  went  on,  gropingly  enough,  at 
times,  it  might  seem,  to  the  accomplishment  of  a  splen- 
did record  of  constructive  work  and  the  creation  of  a 
new  and  more  liberalized  system  in  place  of  that  which 
had  been  wiped  out  of  existence  in  the  political  renais- 
sance of  1910  and  1912. 


244        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

There  were  other  factors  which  exercised  an  in- 
fluence upon  the  relations  between  President  Harding 
and  his  first  Congress.  In  the  process  of  becoming 
liberalized,  of  harmonizing  the  differences  between  the 
extremes  of  Republican  thought,  of  holding  both  in- 
surgency and  reaction  in  check  in  the  interest  of  the 
common  party  label,  the  House  had  seriously  impaired 
its  sense  of  direction,  and  yet  was  too  conscious  of  its 
new  freedom  to  have  that  deficiency  supplied  from  the 
outside.  Too  many  captains  are  as  much  of  a  nuisance 
as  a  superfluity  of  cooks.  Under  the  old  regime  a 
single  chef  had  presided  over  the  pot,  and  the  broth 
was  always  piping  hot,  although  perhaps  not  flavored 
to  a  universal  taste.  Under  the  new  regime  every  one 
wished  to  be  putting  his  spoon  in.  Every  committee 
chairman  was  a  captain.  The  destruction  of  the  speak- 
ership  had  enhanced  the  power  in  the  House  of  the 
individual  chairman,  and  the  tendency  in  this  direction 
became  marked  with  the  departure  from  the  House  of 
Mr.  Underwood,  whose  administration  had  been  strong, 
and  the  advent,  as  his  successor,  of  Mr.  Kitchin,  of 
North  Carolina,  in  whose  time  Mr.  Wilson  rose  to 
his  amazing  apogee. 

The  reaction  from  Mr.  Wilson's  exercise  of  the 
executive  power  was  already  manifest  in  the  House 
in  the  Sixty-Fifth  Congress,  when  there  were  rum- 
blings of  outraged  dignity  and  murmurs  of  discontent ; 
but  it  became  pronounced  in  the  first  Republican  Con- 
gress after  the  close  of  the  war,  and  was  running  at 
flood  tide  as  Mr.  Harding  entered  the  White  House. 
These  were  conditions,  psychological  and  practical, 
over  which  he  had  no  control.  With  respect  to  them 
he  managed  to  establish  his  relationship  with  the  House 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        245 

with  more  success,  perhaps,  both  from  the  point  of 
view  of  his  own  reputation  and  the  success  of  his  party, 
than  could  have  been  achieved  by  any  other  man  who 
might  have  found  himself  in  his  position  in  the  early 
spring  of  1921. 

The  President  knew  nothing  of  the  machinery  of 
House  government.  He  cultivated  the  politicaTIriend- 
ship  of  the  Speaker,  although  Mr.  Gillett  was  without 
any  actual  power  and  was  of  no  mind  to  attempt  the 
exercise  of  any.  Although  accomplished  and  able, 
the  man  who  held  the  Chair  of  Cannon  but  dared  not 
try  to  wear  his  old  shoes  had  passed  the  stage  in  life 
when  ambition  might  have  prompted  him  to  throw  him- 
self into  a  rough  and  tumble  fight  for  the  mastery  of 
the  House,  and  so  the  opportunity  which  occasionally 
offered  passed  him  by  each  time,  and  awaited  the 
advent  on  some  distant  day  of  a  'man  of  the  bold  and 
impatient  spirit  and  the  restless  intolerance  of  a  Clay, 
a  Colfax  or  a  Reed.  Mr.  Gillett  had  no  desire  to 
declare  a  war,  define  a  national  policy,  or  count  a 
quorum,  but  wished  to  be  solely  what  the  will  of  the 
House  which  he  served  had  made  him,  and  so  the 
President  found  in  him  a  broken  reed.  Mr.  Gillett  left 
unanswered  the  question  as  to  what  would  happen  in 
the  new  House  of  Representatives  some  day  when  an 
irresistible  personality  met  an  immovable  idea. 

There  was  another  condition  in  the  House  which 
seemed  baffling  to  the  mind  of  the  President.  This  was 
the  highly  intensified  independence  of  the  individual 
member.  With  party  Tines"  weakened  tKeftendency  was 
for~each  man  to  think  and  act  for  himself.  He  was 
no  longer  coerced  or  instructed  by  the  caucus,  and  the 
restraining  influences  of  that  instrument  of  stern  dis- 


246        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

cipline  no  longer  held  his  intellectuality  in  check.  In- 
evitably a  candidate  for  reelection,  he  outlined  his  own 
campaign,  and  paddled  his  own  political  canoe.  Grad- 
ually he  committed  himself  to  his  constituents  on  an 
increasingly  large  number  of  issues,  without  respect 
to  the  campaign  plans  or  commitments  of  his  associ- 
ates, who  were  doing  precisely  the  same  thing;  so  that 
by  the  time  the  administration  was  ready  to  announce 
a  policy  the  Republicans  in  the  House  whose  votes 
were  essential  to  its  consummation  had  long  since  taken 
a  definite  stand  on  the  question  therein  involved,  fre- 
quently one  quite  at  variance  with  the  program  of  the 
executive  departments  of  the  party.  The  primary  had 
made  the  Congressman  jan  individualist  and  had  dead- 
ened the  oTcTsehse  of  clanship  in  the  opinion  of  those 
who  found  their  best  laid  plans  grievously  disturbed 
by  these  manifestations  of  congressional  disintegra- 
tion, although  actually  the  primary  had  been  an  effect 
jrather  than  a  cause. 

There  was  no  sign  of  the  old  Progressive  party  in 
the  House  when  Mr.  Harding  floated  into  office  on  his 
billowy  majority,  but  there  was  a  great  deal  of  progres- 
sivism.  Many  of  the  men  who  had  helped  to  overthrow 
the  old  Republican  regime  had  risen  to  places  of  re- 
sponsibility, and  functioned  side  by  side  with  disciples 
of  the  denatured  chieftains  of  the  past.  These  liberals 
and  progressives,  some  of  whom  had  followed  Mr. 
Roosevelt  on  the  great  adventure  of  1912,  quietly  pro- 
ceeded to  give  color  to  legislation  which  almost  gagged 
the  conservatives  who  later  on  were  obliged  to  swallow 
it,  legislation  of  a  character  not  at  all  like  that  which 
the  old-fashioned  Republicans  had  confidently  counted 
upon  in  1920  as  with  infinite  satisfaction  they  contem- 


t, 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        247 

plated  the  return  to  power  of  the  party  of  McKinley 
and  Hanna.  So  there  were  two  sorts  of  Republicans  in 
the  House,  and  this  was  an  awkward  fact,  as  stubborn 
as  it  was  unpalatable.  As  the  head  of  a  united  party 
Mr.  Harding's  task  would  have  been  a  day's  work  each 
time  the  sun  came  up.  He  applied  himself  to  the  job 
with  the  only  assets  he  had,  good  humor  and  friendli- 
ness, and  a  desire  to  be  helpful  and  to  please.  No 
others  would  have  been  of  avail. 

Owing  to  the  peculiar  organization  of  the  House,  in 
his  contact  with  that  body  he  did  not  confine  his  touch 
to  a  single  point.  The  time  had  passed  when  a  single 
Member  endowed  with  all  the  power  of  the  House  could 
meet  the  President  eye  to  eye  and  speak  in  the  voice 
of  authority  save  on  the  subject  of  appropriations. 
Also  the  time  had  passed  when  a  single  man  in  the 
White  House  could  summon  there  a  leader  from  the 
Capitol  and  inform  him  as  to  what  Congress  was  going 
to  do.  The  President  discussed  the  legislative  situa- 
tion in  a  spirit  of  mutual  respect  and  friendliness  with 
all  the  leaders,  great  ^and  small,  the  Speaker,  the  Floor 
Manager,  the  chairman  of  committees,  but  when  he  had 
done  so  he  was  still  a  stranger  to  the  innermost 
thoughts  of  the  real  House. 

The  House  no  longer  had  a  composite  mind.  The 
tendency  toward  individualism  checked  its  develop- 
ment. But  nevertheless  it  had  a  supreme  confidence 
in  itself.  It  was  willing  to  work  with  the  President, 
but  not  under  him,  and  when  its  interests  and  its  self- 
esteem  were  incompatible  with  the  desires  of  the 
Executive  it  was  not  the  House  which  yielded.  It 
was  equally  self-conscious  in  its  relationships  with 
the  Senate,  which  it  rather  astonished  when,  in  the 


248        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

exercise  of  its  considerable  prerogatives  as  to  for- 
eign relations  under  the  Constitution,  it  passed  its 
own  resolution  declaring  the  war  with  the  former 
Central  Empires  to  be  at  an  end,  and  by  a  unanimous 
vote  rejected  the  resolution  which  had  been  previously 
adopted  by  the  other  body. 

There  were  difficulties  in  the  House  itself,  of  a 
purely  mechanical  character,  which  rendered  the 
problems  of  the  President  more  troublesome.  The 
committee  system  was  archaic.  It  was  crying  for  re- 
form, but  was  hallowed  by  tradition  and  fortified  by 
selfish  interests.  Some  of  the  more  important  com- 
mittees had  existed  from  the  time  of  the  First  Con- 
gress, and  many  were  a  century  old.  In  the  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congress  the  Standing  Committees,  through 
which  all  the  legislation  passed  in  the  preliminary 
processes  of  preparation,  had  increased  to  sixty  in 
number,  but  they  were  imperfectly  coordinated  with 
the  bureaus  and  departments  of  the  executive  branch  of 
the  government.  Before  the  creation  of  the  centralized 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  the  funds  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  department  might  be  scattered  through  a 
great  number  of  bills.  The  reform  effected  under 
Mr.  Mondell  and  Mr.  Good,  and  carried  out  under 
Mr.  Madden,  corrected  this  deplorable  and  unscientific 
state  of  confusion,  but  the  rest  of  the  committees  of 
the  House  were  in  many  instances  not  in  conformity 
with  the  structure  of  the  government,  a  condition 
which  made  it  difficult  for  the  President  to  transact 
his  business  with  the  House.  Moreover  the  seniority 
rule,  generally  adhered  to,  was  responsible  for  the 
fact  that  in  a  number  of  cases  important  chairman- 
ships were  held  by  men  who  were  incompetent.  Often 
the  best  minds  on  committees  could  not  be  utilized  by 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE        249 

the  party  because  of  the  system  which  accorded  rank 
and  power  to  those  who  had  earned  their  places  by 
long  service  rather  than  by  good  service.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  there  should  be  embarrassments.  Party 
policies  were  jeopardized  and  programs  upset^at  most 
inopportune  times. 

The  President  met  all  these  conditions  with  infinite 
patience,  but  it  was  only  natural  in  the  circumstances 
that  his  leadership  should  not  have  been  impressive. 
This  was  not  wholly  because  of  Mr.  Harding's 
lack  of  the  essential  qualities  of  leadership.  The 
party  of  which  he  was  the  theoretical  head  did  not 
look  to  him  for  leadership  because  the  party  was  not 
susceptible  of  being  guided  by  a  single  mind;  the 
party  itself  was  not  united  spiritually.  Coincident 
with  an  inevitable  breaking  down  of  the  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility in  the  House,  due  largely  to  the  fact  that 
the  individual  Member  no  longer  felt  as  he  had  un- 
der the  old  regime  the  restraining  influences  of  party, 
there  was  a  greater  carelessness  in  the  attention  to 
business.  The  task  of  the  new  leadership  of  Mr.  Mon- 
dell  was  infinitely  more  difficult  than  had  been  that 
of  Mr.  Cannon.  To  the  extent  that  this  was  so  was  his 
success  the  more  notable. 

During  the  past  two  decades  there  has  been  a  sig- 
nificant increase  in  what  might  be  called  the  purely 
personal  duties  of  Congressmen,  who  became,  indeed, 
almost  the  special  agents  in  Washington  of  their  con- 
stituents. They  came  to  be  called  upon,  more  and 
more,  to  attend  to  innumerable  matters  unrelated  to 
their  legislative  functions,  to  obtain  passports,  to 
urge  the  granting  of  pardons,  to  secure  the  admission 
of  aliens,  to  report  on  claims  against  the  government, 
to  do  the  errands  of  influential  persons  in  their  con- 


250        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

gressional  districts,  and  whereas  there  had  been  a 
marked  decrease  in  their  activities  on  behalf  of  office- 
seekers,  the  other  matters  came  to  be  more  and  more 
a  drain  upon  their  time  which  should  have  been  de- 
voted strictly  to  the  major  business  of  law-making. 
Owing  to  the  power  of  confirmation  possessed  by  the 
Senate,  Members  of  the  House  were  naturally  less 
interested  than  Senators  in  matters  of  patronage, 
while  the  steady  growth  of  the  civil  service  had 
tended  to  weaken  the  patronage  power  of  the  Presi- 
dent in  some  degree.  Hence  the  House  felt  com- 
paratively little  the  pressure  which  Executives  exert 
through  the  distribution  of  federal  offices. 

Not  only  was  the  House  much  more  unwieldly  by 
reason  of  its  larger  size,  than  it  had  been  under  the 
old  regime,  but  the  private  offices  of  Members  had 
been  removed  to  a  building  some  little  distance  from 
the  Capitol.  In  the  time  of  Reed  few  were  influen- 
tial enough  to  have  assigned  to  them  offices  in  the 
Capitol,  and  only  committee  chairmen  were  adequately 
housed.  The  average  Member's  office  was  under  his 
hat,  and  one  would  find  him  dictating  his  correspond- 
ence to  his  stenographer  in  the  corridors  outside  the 
House  chamber,  or  in  some  quiet  nook  behind  a  shel- 
tering bit  of  bronze  or  marble  in  Statuary  Hall.  The 
conditions  at  that  time  imposed  some  hardships  upon 
Members,  but  they  had  the  effect,  at  least,  of  keeping 
them  always  close  to  the  House  when  it  was  in  ses- 
sion, and  there  being  no  better  place  to  go  they  would 
stay  on  the  floor.  The  result  was  that  attendance 
was  better  under  the  old  regime  than  the  new,  when 
Members  spent  much  of  their  time  in  their  offices 
outside  the  Capitol  building.  Instead  of  being  rounded 
up  by  the  "whip"  when  their  presence  was  required 


HARDING  AND  THE  NEW  HOUSE         251 

by  the  leaders,  under  the  new  system  they  would  be 
summoned  by  electric  signals,  and  so  it  came  about 
that  the  real  business  of  the  House  was  transacted  by 
a  comparaJtiYelyjsmall  number  qf^  men  in  actual  at- 
tendance upon  the  sessions,  the  others  rushing  in 
from  time  to  time,  to  answer  the  roll-call,  and  then 
darting  out  again  to  hurry  back  to  their  offices  there 
to  remain  until  another  occasion  to  vote  might  arise. 
Under  this  system,  due  to  the  great  growth  in  the 
membership  of  the  House,  the  problems  of  leader- 
ship were  increased,  and  the  average  Member  suffered 
in  the  long  run  from  a  lack  of  familiarity  with  the 
intricate  details  of  the  business  of  legislation. 

In  spite  of  all  these  conditions  the  House  grew  in 
freedom,  in  liberalism  and  in  democracy.  Its  legis- 
lative record  conferred  upon  it  a  high  distinction.  It 
passed  such  measures  as  it  desired  with  remarkable 
efficiency  and  despatch.  It  declined  to  pass  those 
which  it  did  not  favor  despite  the  pressure  from  the 
executive  part  of  the  government.  It  proved  to  be 
able,  courageous  and  remarkably  independent.  The  one 
act  of  stultification  which,  from  its  own  point  of  view, 
at  the  close  of  the  second  session  of  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress,  marred  an  otherwise  perfect  record,  was  the 
surrender  of  its  constitutional  tariff -making  power  to 
the  President  in  the  Fordney-McCumber  law.  The 
House  accepted  this  way  out  of  an  embarrassing  po- 
litical situation,  appreciating  that  there  had  been 
planted  in  that  act  the  germ  of  future  conflict  between 
the  Legislative  and  the  Executive.  The  overriding  of 
the  presidential  veto  of  the  soldiers'  compensation  act 
had  more  truly  reflected  the  real  spirit  of  the  new 
House. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION 

WHEN  the  Republicans  returned  to  power  in  Con- 
gress in  1919  the  House  took  the  initiative  in  estab- 
lishing helpful  and  harmonious  relations,  through  the 
medium  of  the  party,  with  the  Senate,  but  the  effort 
proved  only  partly  successful.  In  the  Sixty-Sixth 
Congress  Mr.  Mondell  proposed  to  Senator  Lodge,  the 
Republican  leader  of  the  Senate,  that  joint  meetings 
of  the  Steering  Committees  of  the  two  bodies  should 
be  held  from  time  to  time,  with  a  view  to  the  reach- 
ing of  agreements  on  the  legislative  program.  This 
was  an  innovation,  and  a  most  interesting  experiment. 
To  discover  the  reasons  for  the  failure  of  a  plan  so 
admirably  adapted  to  party  needs  one  must  look 
rather  in  the  Senate  than  in  the  House.  Numerous 
factors  contributed  to  the  abortive  attempts  made  to 
unite  the  party  in  Congress,  and  these  became  even 
more  conspicuous  when  the  election  of  a  Republican 
President  in  1920  made  harmonious  party  action  still 
more  desirable. 

The  idea  of  a  Joint  Steering  Committee  originated 
in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Mondell,  who  had  been  making 
various  discoveries  as  to  the  efficacy  of  conference  as 
a  part  of  leadership.  Up  to  this  time  *  informal  con- 
ferences between  Senate  and  House  party  leaders,  so 

*February,  9,  1920. 

252 


253 

called,  had  been  held  from  time  to  time,  but  the  crea- 
tion of  a  joint  body,  the  product  of  the  caucus  of  each 
House,  was  new.  It  was  not  a  joint  committee  of 
Congress,  nor  even  such  a  committee  of  the  two 
Houses  as  had  been  inspired  by  Henry  Clay  and  from 
whose  deliberations  had  come  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise. Mr.  Mondell's  plan  was  for  an  institution 
wholly  within  the  party,  and  when  it  was  agreed  to 
on  the  part  of  Senate  Republicans  great  expectations 
with  respect  to  it  were  entertained. 

There  has  always  been  a  great  deal  of  jealousy  be- 
tween the  Senate  and  the  House,  but  there  was  a 
manifestation  of  this  during  the  Sixty-Seventh  Con- 
gress of  unusual  significance.  Those  responsible  for 
the  party  welfare  in  both  Houses  blamed  each  other 
for  mishaps  and  failures,  and  the  tendency  was  not 
retarded  by  the  enormous  increase  in  the  power  of 
the  House  which  grew  out  of  the  reforms  with  respect 
to  appropriation  bills. 

As  the  head  of  his  party  President  Harding  en- 
countered conditions  in  the  Senate  no  more  conducive 
to  the  exercise  of  leadership  on  his  part  than  those 
which  prevailed  in  the  House.  They  grew  out  of  cir- 
cumstances over  which  the  President  certainly  had  no 
control,  although  it  became  the  habit  of  those  of  critical 
turn  of  mind  to  hold  the  President  in  some  manner 
responsible  for  the  legislative  misadventures,  and  to 
attribute  them  to  the  Executive's  lack  of  the  instincts 
of  leadership,  and  to  the  demoralization  of  Republican 
leadership  in  the  Senate.  With  respect  to  the  latter 
it  was  widely  held  that  the  primary  and  the  direct 
election  of  Senators  had  destroyed  party  solidarity, 
but  this  was  a  superficial  view,  for  the  truth  is  that 


in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  there  was  precisely  as 
much  leadership  in  the  Senate  as  there  had  ever  been. 
The  facts  are  that  there  has  never  been  any  leader- 
ship in  the  Senate. 

It  was  quite  true  that  in  the  first  Congress  under 
President  Harding  the  Republican  majority  of  the 
Senate  did  not  function  as  a  unit,  but  this  was  not  be- 
cause it  lacked  leadership,  but  because  the  Senators 
who  comprised  that  majority  were  not  knitted  together 
by  common  ideas  and  purposes.  Mr.  Lodge  had  man- 
aged to  hold  his  party  together  on  the  League  of 
Nations  because  concerted  party  action,  in  some  meas- 
ure, was  a  political  necessity,  and  every  Republican 
Senator  had  a  personal  and  selfish  interest  in  seeing 
his  party  established  in  power  and  himself  become  a 
majority  instead  of  a  minority  Member  of  the  Senate, 
with  enhanced  prestige  and  prerogatives.  As  soon  as 
this  major  necessity  no  longer  exerted  its  cohesive 
force,  the  majority  tended  to  disintegrate.  Obviously 
a  Steering  Committee  in  the  Senate  whose  members 
were  actuated  by  few  impulses  in  common  could  ac- 
complish little  in  conjunction  with  a  similar  committee 
of  the  Republican  majority  of  the  House.  For  this 
reason  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Mondell  to  establish  an  in- 
strumentality of  the  party  for  the  discussion  of  legis- 
lative questions  and  the  arrangement  of  programs 
between  the  two  Houses,  in  advance  of  legislative  ac- 
tion, did  not  enjoy  that  measure  of  success  which  the 
idea  deserved  to  attain. 

It  was  a  part  of  the  plan  of  the  Floor  Leader  of  the 
House  that  there  should  be  frequent  conferences  be- 
tween the  President  and  the  Joint  Steering  Committee, 
and  those  who  believed  that  party  programs  could  be 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  255 

determined  through  the  processes  of  reason  as  readily 
as  through  the  exercise  of  political  force,  entertained 
the  liveliest  hopes  with  respect  to  them,  but  such 
White  House  meetings  were  of  rare  occurrence,  even 
at  times  when  party  interest  prompted  the  maximum 
of  cooperation  between  Executive,  Senate  and  House. 

In  a  quest  for  an  explanation  of  the  failures  of  the 
Republican  party  to  function  like  a  machine,  the  polit- 
ical philosophers  of  the  party  came  to  no  more  sound 
conclusion  than  that  the  whole  trouble  was  due  to  the 
lack  of  leadership  in  both  Senate  and  House,  and  com- 
parsions  with  the  past  were  made  not  at  all  compli- 
mentary to  the  present.  There  were  sighs  and  lamen- 
tations for  the  old  days  of  Cannon  and  Aldrich. 
Cannon  had  been,  as  Speaker,  the  leader  of  the  House, 
but  Senator  Aldrich  had  never  been  the  leader  of  the 
Senate,  except  through  the  power  of  brains,  and  there 
was  just  as  much  opportunity  for  that  sort  of  leader- 
ship in  both  House  and  Senate,  under  the  new  system 
of  liberalism,  as  ever  there  was  in  the  past  under  the 
regime  of  absolutism. 

In  the  Republican  Senate  leadership  rests  theoreti- 
cally in  the  chairman  of  the  conference,  and  that  chair- 
manship is  largely  a  matter  of  seniority.  In  the  Fifty- 
First  Congress  John  Sherman  was  chairman  of  the 
caucus,  and  there  was  some  bad  feeling  about  it  since 
the  venerable  Ohioan  had  been  out  of  the  Senate  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  yet  insisted  upon  consider- 
ing his  seniority  quite  intact  despite  this  circumstance. 
In  this  Congress  William  B.  Allison,  of  Iowa,  was 
chairman  of  Appropriations,  and  was  also  a  member  of 
Finance,  of  which  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  was 
chairman.  Mr.  Sherman  was  chairman  of  Foreign 


256        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Relations.  Mr.  Allison  succeeded  Sherman  as  chair- 
man of  the  Republican  conference,  or  caucus,  and  the 
leadership  of  the  Senate  passed  to  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations.  Mr.  Allison  was  succeeded  as  chair- 
man of  the  caucus  by  Senator  Frye,  of  Maine,  who 
served  until  April  4,  1911,  when  he  declined  further 
service  in  that  post,  and  was  succeeded  by  Senator 
Cullom,  of  Illinois,  and  on  that  same  date  Mr.  Charles 
Curtis,  of  Kansas,  was  chosen  secretary  of  the  caucus. 
On  March  5,  1913,  Mr.  Gallinger,  of  New  Hampshire, 
was  unanimously  chosen  chairman  of  the  caucus,  and 
on  August  24,  1918,  he  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Lodge, 
of  Massachusetts,  who  was  to  be  chairman  of  Foreign 
Relations  later  on. 

During  this  long  period  of  more  than  thirty  years 
Mr.  Lodge  was  the  only  Republican  Senator  who,  as 
chairman  of  the  conference,  was  in  any  sense  "The 
Leader"  of  the  Senate,  and  this  leadership  he  exercised 
with  conspicuous  success,  only  during  the  period  of  the 
struggle  over  the  Treaty  of  Versailles.  For  the  rest, 
during  a  considerable  part  of  this  period,  on  the  Re- 
publican side  the  actual  leader  of  the  Senate  was 
Nelson  W.  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island,  who  owed  his  pre- 
eminence partly  to  his  place  on  the  Steering  Commit- 
tee, but  more  to  his  membership  on,  and  afterward  his 
chairmanship  of,  the  Committee  on  Finance,  and  to  his 
extraordinary  natural  talent  for  leadership  at  a  time 
when  the  party  was  strongly  united  a'nd  obedient  to 
the  dominant  economic  influence  in  the  nation,  the 
influence  of  powerful  aggregations  of  capital. 

Those  Republicans  who  in  the  House  had  taken 
part  in  the  revolutionary  movement  of  1910,  who  had 
restored  democratic  government  in  the  House,  and  had 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  257 

then  gone  to  the  Senate  largely  in  consequence  of  the 
progressive  reputations  they  had  made  in  the  other 
body,  carried  there  the  leavening  influences  of  liberal- 
ism. There  they  were  joined  also  by  men  of  like  tend- 
encies of  mind,  who  had  reached  the  Senate  directly 
from  their  states,  where  they  had  been  engaged  in 
mighty  conflict  with  the  great  business  interests,  the 
corporations  and  the  railroads,  which  had  undertaken 
to  usurp  the  very  functions  of  government.  In  such 
an  atmosphere  as  they  carried  with  them  into  the 
Senate  the  leadership  of  an  Aldrich  could  not  long 
exist.  Men  like  Beveridge  and  Dolliver,  like  Cummins 
and  Norris,  like  Kenyon  and  Borah,  took  orders  from 
nobody.  Individualistic  to  an  unusual  degree,  of  excep- 
tional talents  of  mind,  of  extraordinary  firmness  of 
character,  such  figures  as  these  in  the  Senate  marked  it 
at  once  with  a  high  distinction,  not  that  all  were  of 
the  same  magnitude,  for  they  varied  in  intelligence 
and  in  soul,  but  because  they  gave  to  the  great  forum  of 
the  nation  a  contact  with  the  masses  of  the  people. 
There  were  some  others,  all  men  of  the  breed  not  easily 
led,  among  them  Hiram  W.  Johnson,  of  California, 
Lenroot,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Jones,  of  Washington. 

There  has  never  been  any  historical  background 
for  the  mythical  institution  of  leadership  in  the  Senate. 
Brains  and  ability  have  always  taken  its  members 
farther  than  political  power.  The  Senator  held  his 
seat  as  the  ambassador  of  a  sovereign  state,  and  even 
after  the  adoption  in  1913  of  the  Seventeenth  Amend- 
ment of  the  Federal  Constitution,  which  provided  for 
the  election  of  Senators  by  the  vote  of  the  people,  some- 
thing of  the  old  tradition  remained. 
/  This  constitutional  reform,  making  the  Senator  re- 


258        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

sponsible  to  the  people,  accentuated  his  individualism, 
but  it  did  not  create  it.  It  had  a  tendency,  as  the  pri- 
mary had  had  in  the  House,  to  undermine  party  soli- 
darity, but  it  did  not  start  it.  The  Senator  came  to 
think  more  in  terms  of  himself  and  his  own  reelection, 
nearly  always  an  impelling  motive,  and  less  in  terms 
of  party  ;Jbut  as  in  the  House,  where  under  the  new 
regime  a  tariff  law  was  passed  in  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress  under  a  "gag"  rule  as  drastic  as  any  which 
the  mind  of  Reed  or  Cannon  had  conceived,  there  were 
no  mechanical  obstacles  in  the  way  of  concerted  party 
action,  save  the  freedom  of  debate,  by  which  the  rights 
of  the  minority  were  preserved.  Whenever  the  ma- 
jority desired  to  act  it  could  act,  and  when  it  did  not 
do  so  it  was  because  the  majority  was  not  swayed  by 
common  intellectual  impulses. 

The  rules  of  the  Senate  were  always  more  liberal 
than  those  of  the  House,  as  was  natural  in  so  small  a 
body.  Much  business  was  transacted  by  unanimous 
consent,  and  a  Senator  in  charge  of  a  bill  was  always 
the  Floor  Leader.  The  right  of  unlimited  debate  and 
the  power  of  any  Member  to  call  up  a  bill  at  any  time 
largely  did  away  in  the  Senate  with  the  necessity  for 
a  Steering  Committee.  Nevertheless  such  a  committee 
was  created  by  the  Republican  conference  in  the  Sixty- 
Sixth  Congress,  and  it  was  with  this  that  Mr.  Mondell 
proposed  joint  meetings  with  a  similar  committee  of 
Republicans  in  the  House.  Several  meetings  were 
secretly  held  in  a  room  set  apart  for  the  purpose  in  the 
Capitol,  and  they  were  helpful  in  the  formulation  of 
party  policies  at  a  time  when  the  party  was  not  in 
power  in  all  branches  of  the  government. 

When  Mr.  Harding  became  President  an  earnest 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  259 

effort  was  made  by  the  Republicans  of  the  Senate  to 
create,  by  main  force  as  it  were,  an  organization  which 
could  function  with  the  President,  but  there  were 
psychological  factors  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  country 
which  were  not  taken  into  consideration.  However, 
the  Steering  Committee  was  reorganized  with  a  view 
to  strengthening  the  power  of  that  undefined  institu- 
tion known  as  the  "leadership,"  although  there  was 
absolutely  no  leadership  in  the  Senate  whatever,  as 
time  was  to  show.  Senator  Porter  J.  McCumber,  of 
North  Dakota,  had  been  chairman  of  the  committee 
in  the  previous  Congress,  but  he  retired  to  become  a 
member  of  the  Committee  on  Committees,  which  was 
engaged  in  an  important  revision  of  the  committee  sys- 
tem of  the  Senate,  and  was  succeeded  as  chairman  of 
the  Steering  Committee  by  Senator  Lodge,  until  that 
time  only  ex-officio  a  member  of  the  committee,  who 
thus  formally  became  chairman  of  the  caucus,  chair- 
man of  the  Steering  Committee,  and  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations.  It  represented  a 
considerable  concentration  of  party  power  in  his  hands. 
It  was  believed,  by  the  optimistic,  that  at  last  the 
Senate  would  have  a  real  leadership  in  the  majority 
party. 

There  was  yet  another  instance  of  the  concentra- 
tion of  party  power  in  the  hands  of  a  single  Republican 
Senator.  For  many  years  Senator  Curtis,  of  Kansas, 
had  been  growing  in  influence,  until  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress  found  him  in  a  unique  position  in  the  party 
and  in  the  Senate,  as  vice-chairman  of  the  caucus,  the 
Republican  "whip,"  member  of  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee, member  of  the  Committee  on  Committees, 
chairman,  after  the  death  of  Senator  Philander  C. 


Knox,  of  the  Committee  on  Rules,  and  member  of  the 
powerful  fiscal  Committees  of  Finance  and  Appropria- 
tions. No  other  Senator  in  the  long  annals  of  the 
Senate  had  ever  filled  at  one  time  so  many  posts  of  re- 
sponsibility, and  yet,  in  the  one  great  essential  of 
leadership  Senator  Curtis  was  deficient,  for  although  he 
could  lead,  not  all  of  his  power  could  compel  another 
Senator  to  follow  him  against  that  Senator's  judgment 
and  will.  Leadership  in  the  Senate,  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  had  existed  in  the  House  under  the  organiza- 
tion of  Reed  and  Cannon,  was  always  foreign  to  the 
genius  of  the  Senate,  and  never  more  so  than  in  the 
Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  when  a  Republican  President 
coming  upon  the  scene  at  the  close  of  a  war  which  had 
been  volcanic  in  its  social  and  economic  and  political 
consequences,  it  was  never  more  greatly  needed  by  the 
Republican  party.  A  man  of  great  natural  political 
talent,  indefatigable,  willing  and  ready  at  all  times  to 
assume  whatever  burden  of  hard  work  his  manifold 
duties  might  put  upon  him,  familiar  with  the  rules  of 
both  Senate  and  House,  in  which  he  had  served  with 
distinction  before  going  to  the  Senate,  and  thus  singu- 
larly competent  to  render  service  to  his  party,  Mr. 
Curtis  might  have  been  able  to  hold  the  party  together 
under  a  different  system.  The  Senate  gave  him  no 
such  opportunity. 

Whereas  in  the  first  Republican  Senate  after  the 
close  of  the  war  international  questions  engrossed  the 
attention  of  its  Members  to  the  exclusion  generally  of 
domestic  affairs,  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  the 
most  pressing  problems  were  economic,  and  the  titular 
leader  of  the  Senate  was  chairman  of  the  Foreign 
Relations  Committee,  and  not  a  member  of  Finance. 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  261 

The  chairman  of  that  committee,  who  under  different 
circumstances  might  have  taken  the  place  Aldrich  had 
once  held,  was  dying,  and  the  passing  of  Boies  Pen- 
rose  marked  the  departure  from  the  Senate  of  the 
last  of  the  natural  Republican  leaders,  a  man  of  the 
type  whom  men  follow,  because  they  have  those  quali- 
ties of  mind  which  enable  them  instinctively  to  guide 
the  way  in  time  of  doubt.  Like  Aldrich,  Penrose  was 
never  at  a  loss  to  find  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the 
chamber  such  votes  as  he  might  require  in  time  of 
need.  Politics  to  him  was  a  science  and  an  art.  If 
he  had  lived  he  might  have  consolidated  something  of 
the  powers  inherent  in  the  majority,  but  when  he 
had  passed  from  the  scene  there  was  none  other  left 
who  could  succeed  at  so  great  a  task. 

Of  the  younger  men  of  the  Senate  few  were  gifted 
with  natural  political  instincts.  Mr.  McCormick,  of 
Illinois,  belonged  to  the  Progressive  wing  of  the  party, 
and  his  influence  in  the  politics  of  the  Senate  was 
exerted  in  many  directions  and  proved  helpful  to  the 
general  party  interest,  but  although  he  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Steering  Committee,  Senator  McNary,  of 
Oregon,  who  also  possessed  one  of  the  good  political 
minds  on  the  Republican  side  of  the  Senate,  did  not, 
and  the  extraordinary  spectacle  was  presented  of  two 
Senators  so  remarkable  in  their  political  peculiarities 
as  Mr.  LaFollette,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Mr.  France,  of 
Maryland,  going  upon  the  Steering  Committee,  the 
nearest  thing  which  the  Senate  had  to  a  governing 
body.  Neither  of  these  represented  in  the  Senate  any- 
thing save  himself,  for  each  was  intensely  individual- 
istic and  possessed  a  mental  equipment  cut  on  the  bias. 
Mr.  Lodge,  who  appointed  the  Steering  Committee, 


262        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

doubtless  was  actuated  in  making  these  amazing  selec- 
tions by  a  motive  sufficiently  clear  to  himself,  but  it  was 
foreordained  that  no  committee  undertaking  the  deli- 
cate duties  of  a  Steering  Committee  of  a  majority  party 
could  function  when  included  in  its  membership  were 
two  men  each  of  whom  constituted  in  the  Senate  a 
minority  of  one.  V The  complete  demoralization  of  the 
so-called  Republican  leadership  in  the  Senate  was  ex- 
posed when  Mr.  LaFollette,  a  member  of  the  Steering 
Committee  of  his  party,  opened  his  campaign  for  re- 
election in  Wisconsin  in  the  summer  of  1922  by  making 
a  vicious  attack  on  every  major  policy  of  his  party.') 

The  other  members  of  the  Steering  Committee, 
which,  like  the  comparable  committee  of  the  House,  was 
a  caucus  institution  with  an  invisible  office  and  a  theo- 
retical occupation,  included  Senator  Wadsworth,  of 
New  York;  Senator  Fernald,  of  Maine;  Senator  Fre- 
linghuysen,  of  New  Jersey ;  Senator  Kellogg,  of  Minne- 
sota, and  the  progressive  Mr.  McCormick,  who  was 
also  chairman  of  the  Senatorial  Compaign  Committee, 
and  a  most  active  and  useful  Senator. 

It  was  hoped  that  through  this  Steering  Committee 
Senate  power  would  be  concentrated  and  centralized, 
and  that  being  fairly  representative  of  the  varying 
shades  of  opinion  in  the  Senate,  it  would  be  able  to 
expedite  the  business  which  pressed  heavily  upon  the 
party.  It  was  planned  that  there  should  be  close  co- 
operation with  the  Steering  Committee  of  the  House, 
and  frequent  meetings  in  joint  session  were  on  the 
program  of  the  party  managers  who  thus  undertook  the 
role  of  leadership.  These  high  hopes  were  not  realized. 
Cooperation  between  Senate  and  House  through  this 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  263 

medium  was  not  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  joint  con- 
ference with  the  President  failed  to  materialize. 

In  the  beginning  there  was  little  appreciation  of 
the  real  situation  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Penrose  under- 
stood it,  for  he  was  a  profound  psychologist,  and  hav- 
ing played,  from  what  was  virtually  his  death-bed  in 
Philadelphia — although  he  afterward  resumed  his 
place  in  the  Senate — an  important  part  in  the  party 
intrigue  which  had  led  to  the  nomination  in  Chicago 
of  Mr.  Harding,  he  knew  something  of  the  terrific 
forces  in  the  country  which  had  desired  the  nomination 
of  a  man  of  a  different  type  of  mind,  and  realized  that 
they  were  represented  in  the  Senate.  Typifying  in  the 
popular  idea  all  that  stood  for  bosses  and  bossism  in 
American  politics,  Mr.  Penrose,  the  least  understood 
man  of  his  day,  was  essentially  progressive  and  liberal, 
and  was  a  party  leader,  in  a  state  which  had  known 
the  boss  system  since  the  foundation  of  the  Colony  by 
William  Penn,  the  first  American  political  boss,  not  by 
virtue  of  overriding  the  people  and  thwarting  them  of 
their  desires,  but  because  he  had  an  unerring  instinct 
for  ascertaining  what  the  people  wanted  before  they 
knew  it  themselves,  and  a  shrewdness  which  enabled 
him  to  use  this  instinct  to  his  own  advantage,  and  that 
of  his  party.  He  left,  as  a  possible  successor,  Mr. 
James  E.  Watson,  of  Indiana,  who  some  years  before 
had  been  a  part  of  the  brilliant  Cannon  organization 
in  the  House  of  Representatives.  He  was  the  friend 
and  confidant  of  the  astute  Pennsylvania  "boss,"  was 
familiar  with  his  mental  processes,  and  knew  his  way 
about,  to  a  considerable  extent,  through  those  labyrin- 
thian  byways  of  American  politics  which  were  the 


264        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

trails  which  led  from  Spruce  Street,  in  Philadelphia,  to 
the  lairs  of  lesser  Republican  bosses  in  every  part  of 
the  country.  Thus  Mr.  Watson  enjoyed  the  confidence 
of  his  party  leaders  in  the  nation,  especially  in  the  field 
of  business,  and  was  always  in  a  position  to  be  well- 
informed  with  respect  to  party  needs  and  desires  and 
to  command  that  support  elsewhere  which  is  essential 
to  successful  leadership  in  Congress.  He  could  not 
take  the  place  of  Boies  Penrose  for  the  reason  that  he 
was  lacking  in  those  subtle  qualities  of  mind  which  so 
distinguished  the  Pennsylvanian  among  all  political 
leaders  in  America  in  recent  years,  but  he  was  safe, 
cautious  and  prudent,  and  thoroughly  schooled  as  any 
man  must  have  been  who  had  come  up  from  the  ranks 
in  the  old  House  under  Speaker  Cannon  and  John  Dal- 
zell.  Effective  in  debate  and  always  ready  and  alert 
to  guard  the  party  interest,  far-sighted  and  quick  to 
sense  an  approaching  political  danger,  Mr.  Watson  had 
an  extraordinary  capacity  for  making  friends,  and 
under  different  circumstances  he  might  have  led  the 
Republican  majority  in  the  Senate  with  brilliant  suc- 
cess from  the  point  of  view  of  the  general  administra- 
tion advantage;  but  circumstances  in  the  Senate  were 
as  they  were,  and  not  as  ardent  partisans  might  have 
desired  them. 

A  new  power  was  rising  in  the  Senate  as  the  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congress  convened.  This  was  the  power  of 
the  West.  The  reelection  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  in  1916, 
by  the  votes  of  the  Trans-Mississippi  States,  gave  to 
that  section  a  renewed  consciousness  of  its  importance 
in  the  national  life  which  was  reflected  in  the  aggres- 
siveness of  the  western  Republican  men  in  Congress 
and  particularly  in  the  Senate.  The  mental  restless- 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  265 

ness  of  the  West,  its  intellectual  independence  and  its 
desire  to  try  new  things  and  tread  untrod  ways,  which 
had  been  demonstrated  by  the  appearance  of  such  dis- 
tinctive innovations  as  the  Kansas  Industrial  Court, 
the  most  constructive  contribution  to  the  structure  of 
government  in  this  period,  were  shown  by  the  vigor 
with  which  new  doctrines  of  the  obligations  of  the 
government  to  the  people  were  proclaimed.  These 
doctrines  were  generally  repugnant  to  the  conservatism 
of  the  East,  and  resistance  to  them  brought  about  the 
actual  exertion  of  those  forces  which  were  potential 
in  a  political  element  holding  the  balance  of  power. 

Precisely  as  a  western  economic  necessity  in  1810 
had  led  to  political  insurgency  in  Congress  so  western 
economic  necessity  led  to  a  bi-partisan  movement  akin 
to  insurgency  in  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  Mr. 
Harding's  administration.  It  was  wholly  western  in 
inspiration,  although  southern  Democrats  partici- 
pated, and  grew  out  of  an  effort  on  the  part  of  Sena- 
tors and  Representatives  from  the  farming  sections  to 
obtain  for  their  constituents,  through  the  processes  of 
legislation,  relief  from  the  economic  consequences  of 
the  war,  which  had  a  devastating  effect  upon  the  agri- 
cultural industry. 

The  object  could  be  accomplished  only  through 
coalition,  and  the  conservative  administration  of  Mr. 
Harding  was  confronted  at  the  outset  with  the  neces- 
sity of  dealing  with  a  movement  so  terrifying  in  aspect 
and  so  disconcerting  to  those  influential  elements 
within  the  Republican  party,  which  believed  that 
through  some  magic  Mr.  Harding  was  to  begin  where 
Mr.  McKinley,  whose  heir  and  successor  he  had  been 
proclaimed  to  be,  had  left  off.  Thus  the  "Agricultural 


266        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

Bloc"  came  into  existence  in  the  Senate  as  the  result 
of  economic  causes,  but  conservative  Republican  poli- 
ticians instantly  concluded  that  there  was  in  it  the 
germ  of  a  political  idea,  hostile  to  the  two-party  theory 
of  the  American  system,  and  the  President,  who  later 
was  to  embrace  it,  and  seek  to  utilize  it  in  support  of 
his  policy  for  a  subsidized  merchant  marine,  denounced 
the  "group"  as  an  element  in  American  political  life 
destructive  and  devastating  in  its  tendencies. 

The  "Agricultural  Bloc"  was  symptomatic  of  the 
striking  tendency  which  had  been  observable  toward 
the  enactment  of  class  legislation,  a  tendency  which 
seems  likely  to  continue;  but  it  was  economic  and 
selfish,  and  not  political  and  idealistic,  and  thus  con- 
tained within  itself  the  germ  of  its  own  destruction, 
an  institution  which  would  pass  out  as  soon  as  the 
selfish  motives  which  had  prompted  its  creation  no 
longer  served  to  hold  together  those  comprising  it.  As 
a  political  phenomenon  it  was  actually  unimportant, 
having  no  analogy  to  those  movements  springing  from 
moral  conviction,  such  as  the  defection  of  southern 
Whigs  to  the  Democratic  party  on  the  issue  of  the  re- 
peal of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  had  brought 
on  the  struggle  over  Kansas,  and  the  Civil  War,  or 
the  revolt  against  entrenched  power  in  Congress, 
which  had  contributed  largely  to  the  progressive  move- 
ment. Yet  in  a  large  sense  the  "bloc"  tendency  was 
essentially  progressive. 

Nevertheless  the  "Agricultural  Bloc"  proved  highly 
disquieting.  The  destruction  of  the  party  system  and 
government  by  groups  would  be  contrary  to  the  basic 
principles  of  American  government,  a  menace  to  the 
constitutional  structure,  since  there  is  no  provision 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  267 

therein  for  a  plan  of  government  such  as  a  "bloc" 
system  would  necessitate.  Under  the  American  system 
the  Executive  is  not  a  member  of  the  legislative  branch 
of  the  government,  exercises,  constitutionally,  no  legis- 
lative function,  except  that  of  approving  or  disapprov- 
ing acts  passed  by  that  branch,  and  is  not  responsible 
for  his  tenure  of  office,  which  is  fixed  within  pre- 
scribed limits,  to  the  maintenance  of  a  majority  in  the 
legislative  body.  Hence  the  peril  to  American  institu- 
tions through  government  by  organized  minority 
groups  lies,  not  in  the  occasional  breaking  down  of 
party  lines,  but  in  more  sinister  possibilities.  Since 
non-partisan  groups  could  operate  only  in  consequence 
of  aggregating  a  positive  strength  from  different,  and 
generally  antagonistic  elements,  it  would  follow  neces- 
sarily that  to  obtain  adequate  support  of  the  legislative 
program,  whose  accomplishment  had  been  the  motive 
for  the  formation  of  the  coalition,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  make  concessions  at  the  expense  of  principle,  as,  for 
example,  the  necessity  of  giving  support  to  a  measure 
involving  an  expenditure  for  a  sectional  or  local  in- 
terest as  a  part  of  the  price  to  be  paid  for  support  in 
return  for  a  commendable  and  humanitarian  project. 
It  would  also  follow  that  to  prevent  the  disintegra- 
tion of  the  group  or  "bloc,"  organized  for  a  special, 
and  even  worthy  purpose,  it  would  become  necessary, 
to  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  group,  to  exercise 
its  power  in  other  spheres  than  those  originally  con- 
templated, a  matter  of  serious  temptation.  Moreover 
the  creation  in  this  manner  of  a  virtual  veto  power 
in  the  legislative  branch  might  lead  to  coercion  of  the 
Executive,  resting  upon  the  impelling  necessity  of 
carrying  out  a  general  administrative  program,  and 


268        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

compel  him,  in  self-defense,  to  form  an  alliance  with 
the  group,  or  groups,  and  thus  establish  a  coalition 
between  the  President  and  the  dominant  groups  in 
Congress,  whose  policies  would  be  determined  in  secret 
conferences  and  whose  programs  would  be  put  through 
Congress  in  consequence  of  private  agreements  and 
understandings  reached  elsewhere.  The  President, 
under  such  an  arrangment,  would  become  possessed  of 
legislative  functions  not  conferred  upon  him  by  the 
Constitution.  Thus  to  engraft  a  system  of  group-con- 
trol upon  the  American  structure  of  government  would 
be  a  step  toward,  and  not  away  from,  the  ultimate  sub- 
serviency of  Congress  to  the  Executive. 

Consisting  of  between  twenty  and  thirty  Senators, 
and  a  hundred  or  more  Members  of  the  House,  of  both 
parties,  the  "Agricultural  Bloc,"  born  of  the  land 
speculation  craze  in  agricultural  sections  during  and 
immediately  after  the  war,  and  of  the  tremendous 
slump  in  the  value  of  farm  products  in  the  reaction 
of  1920,  despite  the  shrieks  and  lamentations  of  out- 
raged conservatism  in  both  bodies,  proceeded  to  have 
its  way  with  legislation  as  a  highly  organized  minority 
which  at  least  thought  it  knew  precisely  what  it 
wanted,  and  which  certainly  did  know  exactly  how  to 
get  it.  By  the  close  of  the  first  year  of  Mr.  Harding's 
administration  the  entire  legislative  record  of  the  Re- 
publican party  was  progressive,  and  stand-patters  of 
indigo  hue  found  themselves  confronted  by  the  neces- 
sity of  making  their  campaigns  for  reelection  on  a 
platform  which  they  would  have  classified  as  rank 
socialism  ten  years  earlier.  ( Law  after  law  went  on  the 
statute  books  which  had  been  framed  in  the  interest  of 
the  basic  industry  of  the  land.  Some  of  them  could  not 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  269 

stand  the  acid  test  as  to  constitutionality  applied  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  but  others  were  of  unquestioned  le- 
gitimacy in  this  respect,  and  proved  effective.  The 
"Agricultural  Bloc"  went  on  from  conquest  to  conquest. 
It  compelled  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  Senate  to 
rewrite  its  revision  of  the  internal  revenue  law,  dic- 
tated its  own  terms  in  the  framing  of  agricultural 
tariff  schedules,  and  became  a  potent  force.  The  leader- 
ship which  had  been  intended  for  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee was  lodged  in  the  "Agricultural  Bloc"  of  Re- 
publican Senators,  who  had  been  organized  largely  by 
Senator  Kenyon,  of  Iowa,  into  a  very  fair  substitute 
for  the  "governing  body"  of  the  Senate.  With  the 
retirement  from  Congress  of  Mr.  Kenyon,  Mr.  Capper 
became  the  elected  chairman  of  the  "bloc."  j 

Despite  its  appearance  of  novelty  the  #roup  was 
by  no  means  new  to  the  Senate.  There  was  little  es- 
sential difference  between  the  "Agricultural  Bloc,"  and 
the  "bloc"  of  "Silver  Senators"  of  an  earlier  day, 
while  the  group  of  powerful  Senators  who  had  repre- 
sented New  England's  protected  industries  in  the 
Senate  had  been  to  all  intent  a  "bloc"  long  before  that 
European  term  had  been  carelessly  applied  to  those 
Senators  in  Mr.  Harding' s  first  year,  who  had  created 
an  organization  of  their  own  in  the  interest  of  agricul- 
ture. 

The  appearance  of  the  "bloc"  disclosed  the  absence 
of  Senate  leadership  on  the  Republican  side,  and  in 
September,  1921,  in  the  first  session  of  the  Sixty- 
Seventh  Congress,  a  serious  attempt  was  made  to  give 
to  the  majority  a  sense  of  direction  which  it  sadly 
Jacked.  The  legislative  situation  was  already  critical, 
and  it  was  foreseen  that  Mr.  Lodge  would  necessarily 


270        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

have  to  give  considerable  time  to  the  Washington  Con- 
ference, soon  to  assemble,  and  would  therefore  be  un- 
able to  devote  as  much  time  to  the  Senate  as  was 
deemed  essential.  The  highly  centralized  organiza- 
tion, from  which  so  much  had  been  expected,  had 
broken  down,  and  Republican  Senators  who  were  pri- 
marily politicians  and  who  were  already  looking  for- 
ward to  the  campaign  of  1922,  feared  that  under  such 
conditions  as  then  prevailed  the  party  could  not  hope 
to  make  that  record  in  Congress  which  would  be  essen- 
tial to  the  party  as  a  whole  in  a  campaign  year. 

The  Steering  Committee  was  presented  with  an  ex- 
cellent opportunity  to  demonstrate  its  usefulness 
through  the  period  of  Republican  travail,  when  the 
gentlemen  of  the  "Agricultural  Bloc"  attended  strictly 
to  the  business  of  shaping  legislation  nearer  to  the 
"dirt  farmers' "  heart's  desire,  and  the  gentlemen  of 
the  golf  "bloc"  could  always  muster  a  quorum  at  the 
Chevy  Chase  Club,  but  rarely  did  so  in  the  Senate. 
When  the  western  group,  led  by  Mr.  Kenyon,  and  Mr. 
Arthur  Capper,  of  Kansas,  compelled  the  Finance  Com- 
mittee and  the  Republican  stand-patters  to  rewrite  the 
^internal  revenue  law,  the  so-called  leadership  of  the 
^Senate  capitulated  with  more  haste  than  gracefulness 
on  the  matter  of  higher  surtaxes,  upon  which  the 
"bloc"  had  insisted.  Rather  than  see  an  open  coalition 
in  the  Senate  between  western  Republican  insurgents 
and  the  Democrats,  the  "Old  Guard"  surrendered; 
but  there  was  a  mental  reservation.  It  was  in- 
tended that  the  House  should  restore  the  lower 
surtax  rates,  to  which  the  party,  and  the  President, 
were  pledged,  and  assurances  that  the  House  would  do 
iso  were  conveyed  to  the  Senate  spokesmen  of  the  con- 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  271 

servative  element  by  men  at  the  other  end  of  the  Capi- 
tol who,  under  the  new  regime,  lacked  the  power  to 
control  the  House  as  that  body  might  have  been  con- 
trolled in  times  gone  by. 

The  only  effective  leadership  among  Senate  Repub- 
licans had  passed  to  the  "bloc,"  and  then  was  per- 
formed a  maneuver  quite  out  of  the  ordinary  in  con- 
gressional history.  Quietly  and  firmly  the  Senators 
comprising  the  "bloc"  brought  to  bear  upon  Republican 
Members  of  the  House  a  pressure  so  great  that  when 
the  vote  upon  the  surtaxes  was  taken  in  the  latter  body 
the  amazing  discovery  was  made  that  they  had  exerted 
an  influence  which  was  irresistible.  The  House  re- 
versed itself — having  originally  favored  a  lower  tax 
rate  than  that  which  the  Senate  "bloc"  insisted  upon 
and  obtained — and  the  party  leadership  of  Mr.  Hard- 
ing, who  had  sought  to  induce  Congress  to  abolish  the 
higher  tax  schedules,  was  seriously  compromised,  and 
the  spirit  of  legislative  independence  of  the  Executive 
tremendously  uplifted  in  every  liberal  breast. 

The  breaking  down  of  party  solidarity  among 
Senate  Republicans  increased  steadily  during  the 
Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  and  in  the  sequel  Mr.  Harding 
was  obliged  to  accept  at  the  hands  of  his  own  party 
a  reservation  to  his  international  treaty,  which  was 
as  ridiculous  as  the  highly  moral  reservation  with 
which  the  party  finally  conceded  the  validity  of 
Mr.  Newberry's  title  to  his  seat  in  the  Senate.  The 
long  struggle  over  the  tariff  disclosed  the  power  of 
the  "bloc"  and  the  further  demoralization  of  the 
majority.  J 

The  situation  with  respect  to  organized  Republican 
leadership  in  the  Senate  was  so  hopeless  from  the  be- 


272        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

ginning  of  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  that  only  the 
optimistic  and  ardent  souls  entertained  ambitions  con- 
cerning its  reformation.  Mr.  Lodge  was  perfectly 
equipped  in  intellectual  ability  and  political  intuition 
for  leadership.  In  the  seclusion  of  his  study,  in  solemn 
conference  with  himself,  he  could  have  formulated  a 
program  and  defined  a  policy.  But  the  Senate  was  in 
no  mood  for  that  kind  of  leadership  and  Mr.  Lodge  had 
no  taste  and  less  talent  for  running  about.  He  knew 
the  Senate  well,  and  performed  his  duties  as  chairman 
of  the  conference  with  quite  as  much  success  as  could 
have  been  obtained  by  any  of  his  colleagues.  Tempera- 
mentally he  lacked  the  qualities  which  would  have  en- 
abled Mr.  Watson,  of  Indiana,  to  hold  the  party  to- 
gether under  some  sort  of  discipline.  He  was  rather 
bored  by  conferences  when  others  were  present,  and 
one  fancied  that  he  regarded  the  Steering  Committee 
as  only  a  bit  of  nonsense,  exactly  the  place  indeed 
for  the  LaFollettes  and  Frances  of  the  Senate.  At  any 
rate  the  Steering  Committee  under  his  call  met  at  rare 
intervals,  the  joint  sessions  with  the  Steering  Com- 
mittee of  the  House,  which  Mr.  Mondell  had  proposed, 
were  held  still  less  frequently,  and  grand  councils  of 
the  party  with  the  President  on  just  one  occasion,  or 
perhaps  twice  at  the  outside,  during  the  critical 
period. 

(The  truth  of  the  matter  was  that  the  Senate  was 
nor  suffering  from  a  lack  of  leadership,  for  it  had  never 
been  so  constituted  as  to  respond  to  organized  party 
force,  but  was  seeking  to  conform  to  the  new  popular 
idea  of  what  the  Senate  should  be.  It  was  becoming 
precisely  the  kind  of  a  body  the  people  had  intended 
it  should  become  when  they  had  stripped  the  Senator 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  273 

of  his  ambassadorial  dignity  and  made  him  a  hustler 
for  votes,  j 

Some  Senators  yielded  frankly  to  the  changed  con- 
ditions in  American  political  life  and  became,  not  the 
envoys  in  Congress  of  sovereign  states,  but  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  masses.  Some  continued  to  maintain 
a  degree  of  their  former  unique  distinction,  clinging 
to  the  old  conception,  and  the  primaries  of  1922  gave 
to  them  cold  chills.  Others  found  in  the  Senate  no 
further  appeal  to  men  of  independent  minds,  and,  like 
John  Tyler,  voluntarily  planned  to  return  to  private 
life.  The  Senate  was  in  a  state  of  transition  as  it  came 
more  and  more  under  the  dominating  influence  of  the 
plain  people  of  America. 

i  During  the  first  Congress  of  Mr.  Harding's  admin- 
istration the  changes  going  on  in  the  Senate  were  so 
plain  that  they  were,  so  to  speak,  visible  to  the  naked 
eye,  and  the  psychological  transformation  was  not  less 
plain.  The  Senators  were  not  so  sure  of  themselves 
as  they  had  been  formerly;  their  feet  were  planted 
upon  a  foundation  less  stable.  All  felt  themselves  at 
the  mercy  of  their  constituents,  except  perhaps  a  few 
coming  from  conservative  states,  where  political  con- 
ditions had  not  been  disturbed  so  much,  outwardly,  at 
least,  by  the  intellectual  unrest  of  the  people.  This 
was  true  more  with  respect  to  Democrats  than  Re- 
publicans.) Ordinarily  the  primary  should  not  have 
affected  the  character  of  the  Senate  so  much,  for  it 
had  been  the  well-nigh  universal  experience  with  re- 
spect to  this  method  of  determining  nominations,  that 
its  greatest  weakness  and  imperfection  lay  in  the  fact 
that  the  people,  busy  with  their  personal  affairs,  with 
their  plantings  and  harvestings,  their  trade  and  barter, 


274        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

could  not  be  induced  to  show  in  the  primary  elections 
that  interest  and  concern  essential  to  the  success  of  the 
system  as  an  important  stone  in  the  edifice  of  govern- 
ment. In  most  states  marked  apathy  characterized  the 
average  primary  contest,  and  only  when  public  interest 
had  been  aroused  by  a  forceful  and  picturesque  presen- 
tation of  issues,  were  the  voters  sufficiently  aroused  to 
go  to  the  polls.  In  some  states  this  condition  had  be- 
come so  pronounced  as  to  lead  to  movements  looking 
toward  reform,  even  to  the  extent  of  compulsory  vot- 
ing at  the  primary  elections.  In  nearly  all  states  dis- 
couragingly  light  votes  were  usually  cast  in  the  pri- 
maries. 

Conditions  such  as  these  under  normal  circum- 
stances should  have  been  favorable  to  the  interest  of 
sitting  Senators,  since  their  place  of  distinction  in 
their  party,  in  Washington  and  in  their  own  states, 
and  their  long  term  in  office  which  enabled  them  to 
construct  and  maintain  political  organizations  com-? 
posed  of  men  held  in  office  by  the  power  of  patronage 
wielded  under  the  confirmation  prerogative,  tended  to 
make  them  party  leaders  and  heads  of  their  organiza- 
tions. It  is  a  political  truism,  of  course,  that  a  light 
vote  in  any  election  is  favorable  to  the  organization 
candidate,  since  the  organization  is  composed  of  faith- 
ful party  workers,  trained  and  disciplined  and  feeling 
the  responsibilities  of  party,  fit  was  not  the  primary 
so  much  which  had  changed  the  Senate,  but  the 
constitutional  amendment  which  had  altered  the 
basic  conception  of  the  Senate.  By  the  time  Mr. 
Harding  entered  the  White  House  the  Senate  was 
no  longer  aristocratic,  but  was  thoroughly  plebeian, 
a  fact  comprehended  generally  only  by  the  newer  Sena- 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  275 

tors,  and  neither  the  President  nor  those  seasoned  Re- 
publican veterans  upon  whom  he  had  thought  to  lean 
for  support  seemed  to  undersand  the  psychology  of 
this.  Senators,  perhaps  unconsciously,  did  not  feel  the 
party  responsibility  so  deeply  as  in  former  times  they 
had.  There  were  still  some  Senators,  like  Mr.  Penrose, 
who  held  control  of  their  states  by  so  firm  a  grasp 
that  they  were  not  so  much  influenced  in  their  actions 
by  personal  political  considerations,  and  it  is  open 
to  augument  whether  or  not  a  Senator  could  not  often 
be  a  braver  Senator  when  he  was  the  "boss"  of  his 
state  than  when  he  was  the  servant  of  its  people.  But 
there  were  few  states  like  Pennsylvania  left  in  the 
Union  at  the  close  of  the  Wilson  administration,  and 
not  even  the  organization  of  that  Republican  strong- 
hold could  survive  the  death  of  the  successor  of  Quay, 
which  was  the  signal  for  a  progressive  uprising. 

In  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress  progressive  Senators 
who  had  been  among  the  recalcitrant  minority  who 
had  refused  to  vote  for  the  Republican  candidate  for 
president  pro  tempore  in  the  Sixty-First,  had  risen 
to  places  of  prominence  in  the  Senate  by  seniority,  and 
although  they  were  no  longer  looked  upon  as  radicals, 
they  exerted  an  influence  in  the  Senate  none  the  less 
powerful  because  their  party  irregularity  had  largely 
been  forgotten.  Mr.  Cummins,  who  had  refused  to 
vote  for  the  party  candidate  for  president  pro  tempore 
in  the  Sixty-First  Congress,  had  himself  become  presi- 
dent pro  tempore,  and  held  to  his  office  with  distinction 
and  tenacity.  If  Mr.  Cummins  had  retired  from  his 
position  of  honor  the  way  might  have  been  opened  to 
a  reorganization  of  the  Senate  which  would  have 
strengthened  the  "leadership"  in  a  political  sense,  but 


276        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

a  project  of  this  nature  much  discussed  came  to  noth- 
ing, and  so  far  as  the  Senate  was  concerned  the  party 
went  into  the  campaign  year  in  1922  no  better  organ- 
ized and  led  than  it  had  been  in  the  past,  and  no  worse. 

fThe  party  in  the  Senate  was  not  of  one  mind  for 
the  reason  that  the  people  whom  they  represented 
were  not  of  one  mind.  Opinion  was  in  a  formative 
stage,  a  fluid  state,  in  the  country,  and  Senators  were 
but  imperfectly  in  touch  with  public  opinion,  trying  to 
sense  it  and  to  respond  to  it.] 

There  were  excellent  reasons  why  this  was  inevit- 
ably so.  The  minds  of  the  people  were  not  convinced 
with  respect  to  scores  of  questions.  They  had  been 
shaken  out  of  their  grooves  by  the  World  War,  which 
had  so  altered  the  aspect  of  society  that  the  most 
familiar  things  were  scarcely  recognizable.  New 
problems  confronted  each  thinking  man,  and  each 
man  was  thinking  for  himself  for  the  reason  that 
he  had  discovered  that  in  the  new  universe  in  which 
he  stood  he  knew  about  as  much  about  things  as  any 
one  else.  It  is  remarkable  that  there  was  not  an 
even  greater  disintegration  of  political  opinion,  such 
as  that  which  had  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Federalist  party,  which  had  caused  the  obliteration  of 
the  Whigs,  which  had  brought  parties  to  a  condition 
of  chaos  in  the  decade  preceding  the  Civil  War.  Polit- 
ical opinion  had  seemed  in  a  state  of  demoralization 
when  the  Thirty-Fourth  Congress  had  assembled  in 
1855,  and  no  less  than  nine  candidates  for  the  speaker- 
ship,  representing  as  many  parties,  or  shades  of  parti- 
sanship, contested  for  control  of  the  House.  "Party 
principles  had  been  invaded,  disguised  or  suppressed ; 
party  names  had  bowed  to  emergencies  suddenly 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  277 

sprung  upon  politicians ;  and  politicians  had  hurriedly 
bent  the  knee  to  clamors  which  they  thought  indica- 
tions of  party  will.  Old-fashioned  party  men  could 
scarcely  recognize  their  isolation;  and  new-fashioned 
party  men  soon  lost  their  definitiveness,  or  were  unable 
to  master  or  serve  it,  in  the  jumble  that  took  place." 
This  analysis  of  the  conditions  which  had  finally  re- 
sulted in  the  election  of  Nathaniel  P.  Banks  to  the 
speakership,  written  by  a  contemporary,  might  have 
been  applied  as  an  apt  description  to  certain  phases 
of  the  situation  in  the  Senate  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Con- 
gress, when  party  opinion  was  in  such  a  state  that  one 
witnessed  with  amazement  and  not  a  little  relish  the 
interesting  spectacle  of  Mr.  Lodge,  the  Republican 
leader,  voting  against  the  Finance  Committee  of  his 
party  to  reduce  a  duty  in  a  tariff  bill,  and  to  pass  the 
bonus  bill  over  the  veto  of  his  own  President.  When 
things  were  in  such  a  state  that  a  leader  could  not 
even  lead  himself,  there  was  something  wrong  many 
persons  thought ;  but  there  was,  in  truth,  nothing  seri- 
ous. The  Senate  was  merely  changing  its  skin,  and  that 
is  a  process  invariably  accompanied  by  contortions./ 

In  point  of  intellectual  ability  the  new  Senate,  re- 
sponsible to  the  people,  was  quite  as  strong  as  the  old 
Senate  which  had  been  made  up  of  representatives  of 
the  states,  and  Mr.  Lodge  and  his  associates  on  the 
Republican  side,  and  Mr.  Underwood,  and  his  Demo- 
cratic colleagues,  in  every  respect  the  peers  of  Sena- 
tors who  had  preceded  them  into  the  pages  of  history. 
The  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  as  a  whole,  was  not  open 
to  sound  criticism,  the  Senate  as  well  as  the  House, 
which  was  a  particularly  strong  House,  and  the  com- 
plaints made  of  these  two  component  bodies  were  based 


upon  wrong  perceptions,  when  they  did  not  spring 
from  a  design  to  discredit  the  progressive  reforms  in 
government. 

The  increasing  influence  of  the  West  in  the  Senate 
was  bringing  new  men  and  new  ideas  to  the  front. 
The  passing  of  the  balance  of  political  power  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley  was  naturally  reflected  in  Congress, 
and  especially  in  the  Senate.  In  the  reorganization  of 
Senate  committees,  which  occurred  early  in  1921,  in 
which  the  committees,  long  out  of  harmony  with  the 
needs  of  the  Senate  and  the  executive  departments, 
were  reduced  in  number  from  seventy-five  to  thirty- 
four,  the  complex  committee  system  was  simplified  and 
western  Senators  were  brought  forward  into  posts  of 
greater  responsibility.  Of  the  ten  major  committees, 
under  the  new  scheme  of  reorganization,  those  on  Ap- 
propriations, Agriculture,  Commerce,  Finance,  Foreign 
Relations,  Interstate  Commerce,  Judiciary,  Military 
Affairs,  Naval  Affairs  and  Post-Offices  and  Post-Roads, 
the  chairmanships  were  held  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Con- 
gress by  western  Senators  with  respect  to  seven  of 
them,  while  in  addition,  although  the  venerable  Car- 
roll S.  Page,  of  Vermont,  was  the  titular  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  Mr.  Poindexter,  of 
Washington,  the  former  progressive,  who  had  worked 
his  way  steadily  forward  in  the  Senate  since  his  insur- 
gent days,  was  the  actual  chairman  in  everything  save 
name,  performing  the  labors  which  the  state  of  Mr. 
Page's  health  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to  do. 
Thus  in  1922,  Mr.  Lodge,  at  the  head  of  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, and  Mr.  Wadsworth,  of  New  York,  chairman  of 
Military  Affairs,  were  the  sole  representatives  of  the 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  279 

East  actually  in  places  of  power  at  the  head  of  the 
major  committees  of  the  Senate,  whereas  in  the  Fifty- 
Eighth  Congress,  in  1905,  of  the  corresponding  com- 
mittees of  the  Senate  eight  chairmanships  were  held 
by  eastern  men,  and  New  England,  which  in  Mr.  Hard- 
ing's  time,  theoretically  held  but  two  major  chairman- 
ships, and  actually  but  one,  that  of  Foreign  Relations, 
had  no  less  than  six  of  the  chairmanships  of  the  all- 
powerful  committees  of  the  Senate,  Maine  and  Con- 
necticut each  having  two.  Nothing  could  better  illus- 
trate the  great  change  which  had  taken  place  in  Senate 
leadership  since  the  passing  of  the  old  regime,  and 
the  transfer  of  the  dominant  political  power  of  the  na- 
tion to  the  great  West.  The  western  influence  in  Amer- 
ican political  life  had  been  liberalizing  for  a  century, 
and  was  no  less  so  in  1920  than  it  had  been  in  1810, 
when  Henry  Clay  had  clarified  the  atmosphere  of 
Washington  with  a  great  gust  of  western  inspiration. 

Thus  there  was  in  a  sense  a  deep  significance  in  the 
appearance  of  the  "Agricultural  Bloc"  of  western  Sena- 
tors from  the  crop-producing  states  whence  the  nation 
drew  its  food  supplies.  The  idea  which  it  represented 
was  economic  rather  than  political.  It  was  in  its  po- 
tential force  rather  than  its  actual  force  that  its  deep 
meaning  lay.  It  disclosed  a  community  of  interest 
between  the  West  and  the  South,  and  meant  that  when- 
ever these  two  sections  should  choose  to  join  hands 
they  could  rule  the  republic.  The  continued  influence 
of  New  England  and  the  East  in  the  management  of 
the  affairs  of  the  American  government  would  depend 
in  the  future  upon  the  alliance  which  could  be  main- 
tained with  the  western  group  of  progressive  agricul- 


280        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

tural  states,  and  that  alliance  hung  upon  the  willing- 
ness of  the  manufacturing  states  to  subordinate  their 
selfishness  to  the  needs  of  the  corn  and  wheat  belt. 

Of  the  spokesmen  for  this  vast  region  Mr.  Capper, 
of  Kansas,  exerted  from  the  beginning  of  the  Harding 
administration  the  largest  single  influence  of  any  man 
in  the  Senate.  The  newspapers  which  he  controlled  and 
which  he  edited  from  his  desk  in  the  Senate  were  read 
in  every  farm-house  in  the  West,  and  invaded  the  East 
as  well,  making  a  new  field  for  the  propagation  of  the 
ideas  which  the  Topeka  publisher  broadcasted  from 
his  presses. 

There  was  no  editor  in  America  with  so  keen  an 
insight  into  the  human  heart  as  Mr.  Capper  possessed. 
The  richest  man  in  his  state,  he  had  gained  wealth 
without  losing  his  homely  sympathy  for  the  people,  and 
his  daily  and  weekly  publications  reflected  all  the  hopes 
and  sorrows  of  the  small  town  and  the  farm.  It  was 
Mr.  Capper  who  had  thwarted  the  President  and  the 
leaders  of  this  party  in  respect  to  the  reduction  of  the 
surtaxes  in  the  internal  revenue  revision  which  the 
Republicans  made  upon  assuming  the  reins  of  gov- 
ernment. He  did  more  than  fight  the  proposal  of 
the  administration  in  the  Senate,  where  he  unostenta- 
tiously led  the  "Farm  Bloc"  revolt  and  forced  the  capit- 
ulation of  Penrose  and  Lodge — he  extended  his  influ- 
ence to  the  House  in  unobtrusive  ways,  and  won  a 
smashing  victory  for  a  western  idea.  All  the  time  he 
continued  to  play  golf  with  the  President,  and  gen- 
erally was  a  good  substantial  Republican  until  occasion 
required  a  show  of  his  mighty  power  of  publicity  in 
the  interest  of  those  principles  which  his  "short-grass" 
newspapers  steadily  advanced.  Quiet  and  unassuming 


THE  SENATE  IN  EVOLUTION  281 

in  manner,  with  no  talent  as  a  fighter,  Mr.  Capper 
exerted  his  influence  in  the  Senate  through  a  steady 
and  subtle  pressure,  which  had  the  corrosive  effect  of 
dropping  water.  Lacking  the  genius  of  Mr.  McNary, 
of  Oregon,  for  political  intrigue,  for  arranging  this 
and  fixing  that,  he  had  simpler  methods  whereby  to 
reach  his  objectives  and  the  two  men,  so  much  unlike  in 
many  fundamental  ways,  formed  an  admirable  team 
and  exerted  an  influence  upon  the  business  of  the  party 
in  the  Senate  which  was,  perhaps,  not  at  all  understood 
outside  of  that  body. 

The  passing  of  Pennsylvania's  influential  Senators, 
Penrose  and  Knox,  deprived  the  Senate  of  two  of  its 
most  conspicuous  figures.  On  the  Republican  side  Mr. 
Pepper  brought  to  the  Senate  perhaps  its  finest  legal 
conscience,  while  Mr.  Brandegee  possessed  doubtless 
the  best  practical  legal  mind.  The  Connecticut  Senator 
had  been  quietly  coming  into  a  position  of  leadership 
in  the  Senate,  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  should 
always  be  used,  as  meaning  a  power  of  mind  and  not 
of  any  political  force,  but  so  quietly  as  to  have  at- 
tracted little  notice.  There  were  indications  noticeable 
to  those  who  studied  the  Senate  that  he  exerted  a  con- 
siderable influence  upon  Mr.  Lodge,  and  the  stand 
which  he  took  with  respect  to  the  insistence  by  the 
Senate  of  reservations  'to  Mr.  Hughes'  amazing  treaty 
of  alliance  proved  the  impregnability  of  his  intellect- 
ual integrity.  Slow  and  rather  inclined  to  laziness, 
Mr.  Brandegee  was  of  the  type  which  must  be  aroused 
to  action,  but  once  Stirred  he  was  formidable  in  a 
gentlemanly  and  diplomatic  way.  Like  Borah  he  stood 
firm  on  principles,  regardless  of  political  consequences, 
and  like  that  great  shaggy  grizzly  from  Idaho  he  would 


282        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

not  sacrifice  a  national  or  a  moral  issue  for  the  sake 
of  a  temporary  political  advantage.  In  uncompromis- 
ing political  honesty  Mr.  Wadsworth,  of  New  York, 
who  had  brought  to  the  Senate  the  parliamentary  ex- 
perience gained  in  the  New  York  speakership,  who  was 
young,  strong  and  aggressive,  a  firm  believer  in  the 
two-party  system  of  government,  and  who  was  willing 
to  labor  at  the  tasks  of  legislation,  was  a  force  in  the 
Senate  without  being  a  leader.  In  the  general  dis- 
integration of  political  opinion  going  on  in  the  Senate 
he  stood  fast  to  basic  facts  and  refused  to  budge. 

/Intellectually  the  Senate  was  as  strong  under  Mr. 
Harding  as  it  had  been  under  Mr.  McKinley,  and  as 
able  as  any  Senate  which  had  existed  since  the  early 
days  of  the  republic,  whose  traditions  have  become 
historical.  The  Senate  of  the  people  which  had  debated 
and  determined  the  question  of  the  League  of  Nations 
had  been  as  brilliant  as  any  Senate  in  the  annals  of 
America.  It  was  a  time  when  the  whole  intellectual 
level  of  the  country  was  on  a  very  high  plane,  and  when 
the  United  States  Senate  itself  was  inspired  by  the 
great  outpouring  of  national  expression  which  made 
the  very  laborer  in  the  street  an  orator  and  a  states- 
man. The  debates  in  the  Senate  in  this  period  will 
bear  comparison  with  those  of  the  days  of  Clay,  Cal- 
houn  and  Webster.  One  finds  nothing  in  the  great  dis- 
cussions over  slavery  and  secession  exceeding  in  power 
and  majesty  the  debates  of  the  Senate  at  the  close  of 
the  war.  The  inability  of  the  Senate  to  function  more 
perfectly  with  the  House,  and  the  indications  of  its  own 
lost  sense  of  direction,  were  not  signs  of  intellectual 
poverty.  The  Senate  was  simply  showing  itself  to  the 
country,  for  the  first  time  under  normal  conditions,  in 
its  new  character. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE 

IT  BEGAN  to  be  apparent  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Con- 
gress that  the  character  of  the  Senate  was  perceptibly 
changing.  In  the  process  of  becoming  liberalized  that 
body  had  lost  much  of  its  constitutional  distinction. 

Doubtless  it  was  never  contemplated  by  the  found- 
ers of  the  government  that  in  the  event  of  Senators 
being  opposed  to  the  ratification  of  a  treaty  negotiated 
and  submitted  by  the  Executive,  the  President  could 
appeal  over  the  head  of  the  Senate  to  the  constituencies 
of  members  of  that  body  who  might  not  be  in  sympathy 
with  his  foreign  policy.  In  view  of  the  extraordinary 
significance  of  the  language  of  the  Constitution  which 
gives  to  the  Senate  a  distinctly  executive  authority 
with  respect  to  treaties,  the  change  in  the  organic  law 
which  had  subjected  Senators  in  the  exercise  of  this 
function,  to  reprisals  at  the  hands  of  a  President  in 
a  political  campaign,  was  of  serious  import,  compara- 
ble to  an  alteration  in  the  organic  law  which  would 
enable  a  President  to  appeal  to  the  country  from  a 
decision  by  the  Supreme  Court,  or  to  seek  to  influence 
a  decision.  The  Supreme  Court  is  made  by  the  Con- 
stitution impervious  to  the  influences  of  political  con- 
troversy. In  each  generation  this  great  court  has  re- 
sponded subconsciously  to  the  mandate  of  the  people's 
will,  interpreting  the  Constitution  in  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age  which  it  has  served.  But  it  has  re- 

283 


284        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

mained  impregnable  to  the  assaults  of  passing  whims 
and  unsolidified  opinion.  \In  impeachment  cases  the 
Senate  sits  as  a  court,  and  when  thus  sitting  upon  the 
trial  of  the  President,  the  Chief  Justice  shall  preside, 
and  the  Senate  assumes  a  judicial  dignity  superior  to 
that  of  the  Supreme  Court  itself.  The  direct  election 
of  Senators  therefore  altered  the  character  of  the  Sen- 
ate in  this  important  respect,  that  it  changed  the 
nation's  highest  judicial  tribunal,  that  charged  with 
the  duty  of  trying  the  President  of  the  United  States 
in  impeachment  proceedings,  from  a  conservative  to  a 
popular  body,  whose  Members  were  constantly  under 
the  necessity  of  bowing  to  public  clamor  in  order  to 
retain  their  seats.  \The  Senate's  power  of  confirmation 
had  already  been  much  weakened  by  the  extension  of 
the  civil  service,  and  the  further  impairment  of  its 
functions  with  respect  to  the  ratification  of  treaties 
and  in  its  judicial  capacity,  tended  to  undermine  its 
influence  at  a  time  when  the  House  was  consolidating 
the  appropriating  power  more  firmly  in  its  own  hands. 
It  was  apparent  that  the  Senate  was  in  decline,  that 
the  power  of  the  House  was  rising,  and  that  since  the 
Constitution  did  not  contemplate  two  popular  bodies, 
that  body  of  Congress  having  the  strongest  unimpaired 
powers  would  dominate  the  other.  Thus  the  Senate, 
as  Mr.  Harding  came  into  office,  was  tending  to  become, 
not  a  second  House  of  Representatives,  for  there  is  no 
place  in  the  system  for  that  kind  of  a  body,  but  an 
institution  inferior  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
whose  bright  star  ascended  as  the  Senate  went  into 
eclipse. 

Fortified  by  the  aggrandizement  of  its  enormous 
power  with  respect  to  the  federal  revenues  exercised 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE    285 

under  a  rigid  legislative  budget  system  and  operating 
under  rules  designed  to  check  any  attempted  usurpa- 
tions of  the  Senate,  the  House  in  the  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress  seemed  at  the  threshold  of  a  new  era,  which 
should  witness  the  rise  of  the  truly  popular  branch  of 
the  national  legislature  as  the  great  forum  of  the  re- 
public. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  in  the  beginning  the 
House  had  been  greater  than  the  Senate.  Clay  had 
found  there  a  more  splendid  opportunity  than  the 
Senate  had  afforded  him  during  the  two  short  terms 
which  he  had  served  before  he  was  Speaker,  and  he 
voluntarily  left  the  Senate  because  of  the  larger  ad- 
vantage which  he  might  have  for  the  exercise  of  his 
talents  and  the  consummation  of  his  plans  in  the  other 
body. 

"At  the  origin  of  the  government,"  said  Vice-Presi- 
dent John  C.  Breckinridge,  in  an  address  preceding  the 
removal  of  the  Senate  from  the  old  to  its  new 
chamber,*  "the  Senate  seemed  to  be  regarded  chiefly  as 
an  executive  council.  The  President  often  visited  the 
chamber  and  conferred  personally  with  this  body ;  most 
of  its  business  was  transacted  with  closed  doors,  and 
it  took  comparatively  little  part  in  the  legislative  de- 
bates. The  rising  and  vigorous  intellects  of  the  coun- 
try sought  the  arena  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
as  the  appropriate  theater  for  the  display  of  their 
powers.  Mr.  Madison  observed,  on  some  occasion,  that 
being  a  young  man,  and  desiring  to  increase  his  repu- 
tation, he  could  not  afford  to  enter  the  Senate;  and 
it  will  be  remembered,  that,  so  late  as  1812,  the  great 
debates  which  preceded  the  war  and  aroused  the  coun- 


*In  the  Senate,  January  4,  1859. 


286        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

try  to  the  assertion  of  its  rights,  took  place  in  the  other 
branch  of  Congress." 

The  rise  of  the  Senate  to  power  was  almost  im- 
perceptible, growing  largely  because  of  the  vast  in- 
crease in  the  patronage  which,  with  the  President,  it 
controlled.  The  ambition  of  the  Senate  aimed  at  supe- 
riority not  only  over  the  House,  but  over  the  Presi- 
dent, and  reached  its  height  with  the  impeachment  of 
Andrew  Johnson.  The  senatorial  primary  gained 
ground  in  the  Democratic  and  progressive  states,  as 
senatorial  resistance  to  the  popular  election  of  the 
Members  of  that  body  prevented  the  consummation  of 
the  constitutional  reform  to  which  the  House  at  an 
early  date  was  ready  to  subscribe.  Senators  controlled 
the  political  machines  of  their  states,  and  waxed  fat 
in  arrogance.  The  rich  Senator  with  a  "barrel"  be- 
came a  party  necessity,  and  the  Senate  an  object  of 
popular  suspicion. 

The  Senate  attained  greatness  slowly,  but  not  more 
surely  than  there  gathered  strength  in  the  movement 
for  its  subjugation  to  the  popular  will.  Mr.  Wilson,  of 
Pennsylvania,  in  the  convention  of  1787,  made  a  mo- 
tion to  give  the  election  of  Senators  to  the  people,  but 
his  state,  alone,  voted  for  it,  and  the  constitutional  sys- 
tem was  finally  established  with  the  votes  of  but  two 
states,  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  against  it.  Nearly 
forty  times,  up  to  the  close  of  the  Fiftieth  Congress, 
the  change  to  popular  elections  had  been  urged,  the 
constitutional  amendment  having  been  first  proposed  in 
Congress  in  1826,*  and  submitted  again  in  1835. 
Andrew  Johnson,  as  Representative,  as  Senator,  and  as 
President,  advocated  the  change.  After  the  year  1872 


*By  Mr.  Henry  R.  Storrs. 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE          287 

the  idea  of  the  reform  seized  upon  the  popular  imagina- 
tion, and  in  the  Forty-Ninth  and  Fiftieth  Congresses 
there  were  six  resolutions  proposing  the  direct  elec- 
tion of  Senators.  In  the  Fifty-Second  Congress  twenty- 
five  such  resolutions  were  offered,  and  up  to  1896  the 
legislatures  of  California,  Idaho,  Illinois,  Indiana, 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Kentucky,  Louisiana,  Minnesota,  New 
York,  Ohio,  Oregon,  Washington  and  Wyoming  had 
recommended  the  reform.  The  House  responded  to 
the  demand  which  came  from  the  country,  and  the 
Fifty-Second  and  the  Fifty-Third  Congresses  passed 
joint  resolutions  to  submit  the  proposed  amendment 
to  the  States.  All  this  time  the  Senate  itself  steadily 
resisted,  combatting  an  idea  which  was  finally  embod- 
ied in  the  organic  law,  not  in  consequence  of  a  sudden 
passion  on  the  part  of  the  people  or  of  an  ill-considered 
action  founded  on  hysteria,  but  as  a  result  of  a  well- 
considered  project  hardening  into  solemn  convictions 
through  long  processes  of  thought. 

Jackson,  Johnson  and  Cleveland  challenged  the  ris- 
ing power  of  the  Senate,  which  grew  in  greatness  until 
the  only  remedy  which  could  cure  the  disease  of  legis- 
lative pride  was  applied  to  it.  Mr.  Lodge,  writing  in 
1903,  said  that  the  power  of  the  Senate  had  grown 
enormously  since  its  creation,  but  he  declared  this  to 
be  due  to  no  usurpations  on  its  part.  "The  increase  in 
the  importance,  weight,  and  power  of  the  Senate  is 
due  primarily  to  its  inherent  strength,  and  this 
strength  rests  upon  the  manner  in  which  it  was  en- 
dowed by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution.*  With  equal 
authority  in  legislation,  with  executive  functions  which 
involve  all  appointments  to  office  and  all  our  foreign 


*Scribner's  Magazine,  Vol.  34,  p.  549. 


288        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

relations,  it  was  inevitable  that  as  the  country  and 
the  government  grew  the  powers  of  the  Senate  should 
increase  more  largely  than  that  of  any  other  branch 
of  the  government,  for  the  single  reason  that  its  origi- 
nal opportunity  for  growth  was  greater.  This  increase 
of  power  in  the  Senate  has  undoubtedly  been  stimu- 
lated by  the  fact  that  the  rigid  rules  necessary  in  the 
lower  branch  have  prevented  the  House  from  doing 
many  important  things  which  the  Senate,  with  its 
easy  methods  of  conducting  business,  could  readily 
take  up.  Many  matters  from  which  the  House  ex- 
cluded itself  by  its  own  rules  were  in  this  way  thrown 
into  the  possession  of  the  Senate,  which  is  a  sure 
method  of  enhancing  legislative  power." 

The  change  to  the  system  of  direct  elections  of 
Senators  by  the  votes  of  the  people  ended  the  era  of 
senatorial  domination,  and  occurred  at  about  the  time 
that  the  House  was  undertaking  the  consolidation  of  its 
own  powers.  The  overthrow  of  the  speakership  and 
the  liberalization  of  the  rules  of  the  House  had  pre- 
ceded the  democratization  of  the  Senate.  The  cen- 
tralization of  the  appropriating  power  in  the  hands 
of  a  single  puissant  committee  of  the  House  under 
a  legislative — and  not  an  executive — budget  system, 
and  the  gradual  working  out  of  a  new  method  of  House 
government  by  the  Republican  party  when  it  returned 
to  office  in  the  legislative  halls  in  1919,  had  followed 
it.  The  causes  which  had  contributed  to  the  increase 
in  the  Senate's  power,  with  respect  to  the  rules  of  the 
House,  no  longer  existed,  and  although  a  mighty  power 
had  been  annihilated  in  the  House  when  the  Speaker 
had  been  rendered  impotent  and  the  rules  revised,  a 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE          289 

power  which  in  the  past  had  challenged  that  of  the 
Senate,  another  power  was  rising  to  take  its  place. 

The  Republican  system  devised  in  the  Sixty-Sixth 
Congress  and  somewhat  perfected  in  the  Sixty-Seventh 
was  obviously  not  to  be  a  permanent  one.  It  required 
something  more,  a  greater  centralization  of  the  power 
of  the  House  in  the  hands  of  the  Floor  Leader;  and 
while  there  were  at  this  period  no  signs  of  any  formid- 
able sentiment  in  the  House  favorable  to  the  restora- 
tion of  the  autocracy  of  the  speakership,  there  were 
noticeable  indications  of  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
thinking  men  of  the  party  in  the  House,  those  endowed 
with  a  keen  sense  of  responsibility,  to  produce  an 
organization  which  should  be  more  effective  in  the 
centralization  of  power  and  responsibility  without  be- 
ing an  encroachment  upon  the  liberty  of  the  individual. 
The  Democratic  system,  in  which  a  greater  power  was 
concentrated  in  the  Floor  Leader  by  virtue  of  his  prac- 
tical control  of  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means, 
the  committee-making  committee  of  the  House  under 
that  party,  had  proved  in  some  respects  more  suited  to 
the  needs  of  the  House  than  that  which  had  been 
evolved,  under  unusual  conditions,  by  the  Republicans. 

That  the  liberalization  of  the  House  had  enhanced 
its  power  over  both  the  Senate  and  the  President  the 
legislative  record  of  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  up 
to  the  time  of  the  summer  recess  in  1922,  clearly  dem- 
onstrated. The  House  needed  only  to  bring  its  govern- 
ing body  into  the  open,  to  reorganize  its  committee 
system,  and  to  reduce  the  numbers  of  its  membership, 
to  take  once  more  the  preeminent  place  it  had  occupied 
in  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  the  government. 


290        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

A  most  significant  change  was  noticeable  in  the 
psychology  of  the  House,  as  subconsciously  it  reacted 
to  the  larger  responsibilities  which  were  thrown  upon 
it.  When  the  Senate  had  been  made  up  of  the  ambassa- 
dors of  states,  and  not  the  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple, it  was  conservative,  and  performed  the  function 
of  being  a  check  upon  the  House,  which  was  regarded 
as  the  more  radical  body  of  the  two  {but  when  the 
Senate  became  responsive  to  the  popular  will  it  showed 
a  striking  tendency  to  be  even  more  susceptible  than 
the  House  itself  to  the  constantly  fluctuating  opinion 
of  the  people  and  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the 
hour.  When  the  Senator  subordinated  statesmanship 
to  vote-getting  he  lost  the  respect  of  the  people  whom 
he  sought  to  serve,  and  his  prestige  was  weakened.  \ 

Mr.  Harding's  administration  was  naturally 
affected  by  the  psychological  condition  at  the  Capitol. 
The  Senate  was  as  strong  in  intellect  as  it  had  ever 
been,  and  there  was  as  much  leadership  as  the  Senate 
had  ever  tolerated,  but  the  old  party  cohesion  was 
gone;  in  the  House  a  new  consciousness  of  the  in- 
creased prestige  of  that  body  possessed  the  minds  of  all 
its  Members.  In  both  bodies  the  very  men  who  com- 
plained of  the  lack  of  the  President's  leadership  turned 
on  him  when  he  sought  to  exercise  it. 

Although  Mr.  Harding  had  been  nominated  by  the 
so-called  reactionary  elements  of  the  Republican  party, 
his  election  by  no  means  represented  the  triumph  of 
that  part  of  the  party  which  outwardly  it  seemed  to 
indicate.  In  a  very  large  sense  the  progressive  defeat 
of  1912  had  been  in  reality  a  victory,  and  without  the 
destruction  of  the  Republican  party  being  accom- 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE    291 

plished,  the  liberals  in  that  party  had  in  effect  taken 
substantial  possession  of  it. 

Mr.  Harding  had  sought  at  the  beginning  of  his 
term  to  establish  cordial  relations  with  the  Senate. 
He  had  appeared  there  in  person,  on  the  day  of  his 
inauguration,  to  present  his  nominations  to  the  Cabi- 
net. He  had  been  a  Member  of  that  body,  but  this 
circumstance  was  not  to  help  him  in  his  design.  The 
fact  that  he  had  been  a  Senator  was  in  reality  against 
him.  Practically  the  Senate  understood  Mr.  Harding 
too  well.  He  was  no  mystery  to  any  man  on  either 
side  of  the  dividing  aisle.  There  was  about  him  no 
baffling  quality  of  mind.  He  never  kept  the  Senate 
guessing,  as  one  might  say;  it  always  knew  what  to 
expect  from  him. 

Perhaps  because  of  his  desire  to  cooperate  with  the 
Senate  Mr.  Harding  began  the  practise  of  having  the 
Vice-President  sit  with  his  Cabinet,  an  innovation 
which,  through  the  tact  and  good  sense  of  an  exceed- 
ingly prudent  and  cautious  man,  resulted  in  no  evil 
consequences,  although  it  certainly  contributed  nothing 
to  the  efficiency  of  government,  and  might  conceivably 
lead  to  most  embarrassing  consequences.  Mr.  Coolidge 
became  in  no  sense  a  liaison  officer  between  the  White 
House  and  the  Senate,  did  not  attempt  to  interpret  the 
President's  policies  at  the  Capitol,  walked  strictly  along 
the  chalk-line  of  his  official  duties,  which  are  not  those 
of  a  Member  of  the  Senate,  but  of  an  officer  of  the 
United  States,  and  gave  to  the  President  and  the  Cabi- 
net the  benefit  of  his  advice,  which  he  might  have  done 
just  as  readily  and  easily  without  being  attached  like 
a  vermiform  appendix  to  the  official  family.  This  effort 


292        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

on  the  part  of  the  President  in  the  direction  of  a  break- 
ing down  of  the  sharp  distinction  between  the  execu- 
tive and  the  legislative  branches  of  the  government 
which  had  endured  from  the  foundation  of  the  re- 
public gained  some  additional  significance  from  a 
movement,  born  in  the  executive  departments  at  a  later 
period,  looking  toward  the  admission  of  members  of 
the  Cabinet  to  the  Houses  of  Congress.  The  idea  was 
not  new,  and  there  was  no  possibility  of  Congress 
acquiescing  in  so  remarkable  a  departure  from  estab- 
lished principles.  The  impetus  given  to  it  by  members 
of  Mr.  Harding's  Cabinet  is  important  in  the  disclosure 
thus  made  of  the  executive  wish  to  draw  into  a  closer 
relationship  with  Congress. 

With  the  members  of  his  party  in  both  Houses  of 
Congress  the  President  came  into  contact  in  the  White 
House,  on  the  Mayflower,  and  under  the  trees  of  his 
favorite  golf  links.  Returning  from  these  excursions 
into  the  presidential  mind,  spokesmen  undertook  to  in- 
terpret what  the  Executive  thought,  or  would  do,  in 
so  many  different  ways  that  it  became  quite  impossible 
for  the  prudent  and  cautious  to  accept  congressional 
opinion  as  White  House  fact.  Programs  at  the  Senate 
changed  from  day  to  day  and  only  the  House  stood 
fast,  and  did  this  only  at  the  cost  of  imprecations 
heaped  upon  it.  The  truth  is  that  those  things  for 
which  the  House  was  criticized  were  not  due  to  its 
weakness  but  to  its  strength. 

The  lack  of  united  party  effort  during  the  first 
eighteen  months  of  the  administration  of  Mr.  Harding 
was  not  an  indication  of  congressional  weakness.  The 
strength  of  the  House  of  Representatives  is  not  gaged 
by  the  harmony  with  which  it  works  with,  and  carries 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE          293 

out,  the  policies  of  the  President,  policies  often  deter- 
mined upon  elsewhere  than  at  the  Capitol  in  confer- 
ences between  the  President  and  his  official,  or  un- 
official advisers,  who  may  not  be  even  members  of  his 
party,  but  by  the  independence  with  which  it  exer- 
cises its  constitutional  functions  in  itself  establishing 
and  developing  policies  of  government.  Measured  by 
this  standard  the  House  in  the  Sixty-Seventh  Congress 
was  perhaps  the  strongest  since  the  Civil  War.  In  the 
vigor  with  which  it  repeatedly  resisted  attempted  in- 
roads upon  its  prerogatives  the  House  was  con- 
spicuous. Although  Mr.  Harding  had  proclaimed  the 
doctrine  of  the  complete  separation  of  the  executive 
and  the  legislative  functions,  the  exigencies  of  his  sit- 
uation, beset  as  he  was  by  the  problems  growing  out 
of  the  war  which  crowded  upon  him,  did  not  always 
permit  him  to  carry  out  his  own  theories,  and  abide 
by  his  own  strict  constitutional  principles,  as  he  de- 
clared them.  The  result  was  that  Congress  was  con- 
stantly coming  into  conflict  with  the  President's  prac- 
tical proposals  which  did  not  invariably  square  with  his 
precepts.  On  the  questions  of  the  soldiers'  bonus,  the 
refunding  of  the  foreign  war  loans,  the  funding  of  the 
railroad  indebtedness,  internal  taxation,  and  others, 
the  House  followed  its  own  inclinations,  contrary  to 
the  Executive's  desires,  taking  its  idea  of  the  relation- 
ship between  the  Capitol  and  the  White  House  from 
its  great  Speaker,  Henry  Clay,  who  said  that  according 
to  the  Constitution  "the  participation  of  the  President 
in  the  legislative  power — his  right  to  pass  upon  a  bill — 
is  subsequent  and  not  previous  to  the  deliberations  of 
Congress.  The  constitutional  provision  is,  that  when 
a  bill  shall  have  passed  both  Houses  it  shall  be  pre- 


294        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

sented  to  the  President  for  his  approval  or  rejection. 
His  right  to  pass  upon  it  results  from  the  presentation 
of  the  bill,  and  is  not  acquired  until  it  is  presented."* 

"The  official  and  constitutional  relations  between 
the  President  and  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,"  said 
Mr.  Clay  on  another  occasion,!  "subsist  with  them  as 
organized  bodies.  His  action  is  confined  to  their  con-, 
summated  proceedings,  and  does  not  extend  to  meas- 
ures in  their  incipient  stages,  during  their  progress 
through  the  Houses,  nor  to  the  motives  by  which  they 
are  actuated." 

This  was  the  strictly  constitutional  theory,  the 
theory  to  which  Republican  Presidents  had  generally 
subscribed,  and  which  Democratic  Presidents  had  as 
generally  ignored.  "Our  President,"  in  the  opinion  of 
Mr.  Taft,  "has  no  initiative  in  respect  to  legislation 
given  him  by  law  except  that  of  mere  recommendation, 
and  no  legal  or  formal  method  of  entering  into  the 
argument  and  discussion  of  the  proposed  legislation 
while  pending  in  Congress."$  Mr.  Harding  upon  an 
interesting  occasion  went  so  far  as  to  appear  per* 
sonally  before  the  Senate — and  not  before  Congress  as 
a  whole — to  use  his  influence,  thus  most  uncommonly 
exerted,  to  prevent  action  upon  a  bill  then  under  con- 
sideration, an  action  whose  psychological  reaction 
upon  the  House  was  not  favorable  to  the  President. 
"In  the  American  system  of  government,"  says  John 
Piske,  "the  independence  of  the  executive  department, 
with  reference  to  the  legislative  is  fundamental."  On 
that  theory  the  new  House  stood.  It  had  reacted  vio- 


*In  the  Senate,  September  25,  1837 
fin  the  Senate,  July  12,  1932. 
$.The  Presidency,  Scribner's,  1916. 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE    295 

lently  from  the  domination  of  Mr.  Wilson,  and  Mr. 
Harding  was  a  victim  of  that  reaction. 

In  the  casting  about  for  an  explanation  of  what  was 
happening  in  American  politics  the  primary  system 
was  seized  upon,  and  forthwith  charged  with  the  crime. 
It  was  true  that  the  primary  had  not  worked  success- 
fully in  some  states,  and  modifications  of  the  idea  were 
being  made  in  New  York,  Minnesota,  and  other  com- 
monwealths, but  the  fundamental  idea  had  obviously 
come  to  stay  in  the  American  political  system  until 
superseded  by  some  other  device  for  making  nomina- 
tions growing  out  of  that  theory  and  not  a  reaction 
from  it.  The  political  phenomena  ascribed  to  the 
effects  of  the  primary  system  were  observable  in 
European  countries  where  there  was  no  primary.  In 
aligning  himself  with  those  who  sought  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  primary  Mr.  Harding  again  failed  to 
understand  the  psychology  of  the  House  and  of 
the  country,  for  the  same  reason,  doubtless,  which 
prompted  him  to  commit  the  error  of  opposing  a  bonus 
for  the  ex-service  men  at  the  very  moment  he  proposed 
a  program  of  elaborate  subsidies  for  the  uneconomic 
war-time  merchant  marine  which  should  have  been 
liquidated  precisely  as  the  surplus  munitions  were  dis- 
posed of.  It  is  a  basic  principle  of  American  state- 
craft that  before  a  President  attempts  the  consunir 
mation  of  a  policy  of  administration  he  should  have 
either  the  Congress  or  the  country  with  him,  but  Mr. 
Harding  frequently  committed  himself  to  projects 
without  being  sure  that  he  had  either,  and  the  result- 
ing confusion  of  party  purpose  was  erroneously 
ascribed  to  a  lack  of  leadership  in  Congress. 

That  this  lack  of  leadership,  so-called,  was  due  to 


296        THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  CONGRESS 

the  general  use  of  the  primary  system,  was  not  sus- 
ceptible of  proof.  The  disintegration  of  political 
opinion  of  which  Republicans  complained  was  by  no 
means  a  phenomenon  in  American  politics.  John  C. 
Calhoun  had  fretted  at  the  identical  thing  in  1843, 
when  he  declared  that  "politics  and  political  parties 
are  becoming  more  and  more  confused,"  and  this  was 
long  before  the  primary  system  had  been  utilized.  Yet 
the  distinguished  South  Carolina  partisan  was  in  much 
the  frame  of  mind  at  this  period  as  characterized 
Senate  Republicans  eighty  years  later.  Those  who 
undertook,  openly  or  covertly,  to  accomplish  the  de- 
struction of  the  primary  failed  to  consider  that  it  had 
been  brought  about,  not  as  the  result  of  a  sudden 
whim,  but  as  a  reform  in  the  nominating  system  which 
had  been  of  very  slow  growth,  succeeding  the  conven- 
tion, no  longer  flexible  and  free,  as  the  convention  had 
succeeded  the  vicious  caucus  system  of  making  nomi- 
nations for  public  office.  All  the  experience  of  the 
American  experiment  in  government  tended  to  show 
that  changes  in  political  institutions  had  come  about 
very  slowly,  and  that  the  processes  of  liberal  reform 
had  never  been  stopped  by  reaction.  All  the  indications 
pointed  to  an  extension  of  the  primary  system,  per- 
haps to  its  modification  in  densely  populated  states, 
such  as  New  York,  having  many  racial  problems  to 
consider,  at  the  very  moment  that  Mr.  Harding  and  the 
conservative  spokesmen  for  the  stand-pat  element  in 
the  Republican  party  took  a  position,  with  much  loss 
of  prestige  to  themselves,  against  an  institution  of 
popular  government  which  bore  all  the  evidences  of 
permanency.  Politicians  of  both  schools  were  being 
compelled  to  see,  according  to  their  light,  that  no  party 


THE  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE    297 

could  afford  to  seek  harmony  through  the  medium  of 
political  force,  and  that  only  through  the  adjustment 
of  those  differences  inherent  in  the  minds  of  honest 
men  could  party  solidarity  be  maintained  and  the  con- 
stitutional system  preserved. 

Thus  the  first  year  and  a  half  of  Mr.  Harding's  ad- 
ministration came  to  an  end  with  the  Executive  meas- 
urably weaker  and  the  House  immensely  stronger  than 
had  been  true  at  the  beginning,  and  with  the  Senate 
seemingly  entering  upon  a  period  of  decline.  Its  inde- 
pendence of  spirit  under  the  new  system  had  been  the 
vindication  of  the  House  as  Congress  responded,  not 
without  making  mistakes,  to  the  hopes  and  aspirations 
of  the  masses  of  the  people  whose  servant  it  recognized 
itself  to  be. 

The  American  people  were  demanding  of  their 
leaders  in  Congress  high  principles,  unbending  courage 
and  fidelity.  As  the  Senate  lost  the  aristocratic  char- 
acter it  had  maintained  for  a  century  the  new  House 
sought  to  conserve  those  splendid  institutions  of  the 
people  which  may  be  preserved  only  in  the  temple  of 
the  people. 

THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adams,  John  Q.,  236. 

Advisory  Committee,  origin  of,  202. 

"Agricultural  Bloc,"  265  et  seq. 

Aldrich,  Nelson  W.,  112,  142,  255,  256;  and  Senate  Committee 

on  Finance,  102. 
Allison,  William  B.:  141,  255,  256;  as  chairman  of  the  Senate 

Committee  on  Appropriations,  111. 
Allston,  Willis,  Jr.,  32. 
Army  Budget,  reduction  of,  235. 
Assembly  of  Virginia,  origin,  4. 

Banks,  Nathaniel  P.:  277;  elected  Speaker  of  the  House,  53. 

Bell,  John,  and  Supply  Bills,  236. 

Benton,  Maecenas  E.,  41. 

Beveridge,  Albert  J.,  141,  267. 

Blackburn,  J.  C.  S.,  80. 

Elaine,  James  G.,  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  73  et  seq. 

Bland,  Richard,  9,  10. 

Borah,  William  E.,  141,  257,  281. 

Boudinot,  27. 

Boutell,  Henry  S.,  171. 

Brandegee  Frank  B.,  281. 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  speech  of,  285. 

Broussard,  Edwin  S.,  169. 

Buchanan,  James:   and  admission  of  Kansas,  54;   nomination 

for  Presidency,  53. 

Budget  Act:  passed  by  Barding,  228;  vetoed  by  Wilson,  228. 
Budget  Commission,  226  et  seq. 
Budget  System,  232  et  seq. 

Burleson,  Albert  S.,  and  removal  of  Cannon,  168. 
Burleson  Resolution,  173. 

Calder,  William  M.,  169. 

"Calendar  Wednesday":  119, 144,  148  et  seq.,  181;  rule  amended, 

301 


802  INDEX 

Calhoun,  John  C.:  38;  and  Jackson,  39,  296. 

Cameron,  Simon,  82. 

Campbell,  Philip  P.,  169,  203. 

Cannon,  Joseph  G.:  22,  84,  85,  111,  209,  227,  235;  absolutism  of, 
97;  assumes  speakership,  112  et  seq.;  "Calendar  Wednesday" 
fight,  151;  characterized,  113;  defense  of  his  committees, 
160;  leadership  questioned,  143  et  seq.?  Norris  Resolution, 
164;  party  loyalty,  162;  power  of,  145;  Roosevelt,  113,  122; 
tariff  revision,  133;  unfamiliarity  with  parliamentary  law, 
118. 

Capper,  Arthur:  269,  270;  as  editor,  280. 

Carey,  Archibald,  9. 

Carlisle,  John  G.:  19,  85,  104,  227;  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  82. 

Carpenters'  Hall,  10. 

Carr,  Dabney,  and  Correspondence  Committee,  9. 

Caucus,  92. 

Civil  Rights  Bill  passed,  62. 

Clark,  Champ:  110,  171;  Committee  on  Rules,  165  et  seq.;  elected 
Speaker,  174;  revolution  in  the  House,  156;  Speaker  of  the 
House,  172  et  seq. 

Clay,  Henry:  98;  declaration  of  War  of  1812,  38;  powers  of 
Congress,  address,  34  et  seq.;  powers  of  President,  49;  as 
Speaker  of  the  House,  31  et  seq.;  Treasury  Department 
speech,  46  et  seq.;  and  United  States  Bank  investigation,  45 
et  seq. 

Clayton,  Augustus  S.:  41,  chairman  United  States  Bank  in- 
vestigation, 43. 

Clayton  Resolution,  43. 

Cleveland,  Grover:  19;  and  Fifty-Third  Congress,  103;  signifi- 
cance of  election  to  Presidency,  76. 

Coif  ax,  Schuyler:  53,  98,  226;  characterized,  56,  57;  and  pass- 
age of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  55;  and  policy  of  the 
Federal  Government  toward  South,  58  et  seq.;  as  Speaker 
of  the  House,  54,  55. 

Colonial  Assemblies,  4. 

Committee  on  Appropriations:  228;  effect  on  Congressmen,  230; 
revision  in  1885,  227. 

Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency,  161. 

Committee  on  Committees,  appointed,  202, 


INDEX  303 

Committee  on  Correspondence,  9. 
Committee  on  Organization,  292. 
Committee  on  Rules:  23;  and  the  Fifty-First  Congress,  86; 

growth,  89;  power  of,  199. 

Committee  on  Ways  and  Means  of  the  Fifty-First  Congress,  86. 
Congress:  conflict  with  Johnson,  64;  constitutional  obligations 

of,  30;  and  Executive,  244;  old  and  new  order  compared, 

196;  reforms,  119  et  seq.;  and  Representatives  from  South, 

61;  revolution  of  1910,  143  et  seq. 
Congressional  Dictionary,  196. 
Congressmen,  personal  duties  of,  249. 
Constitution  and  powers  of  Congress,  28,  29. 
Coolidge,  Calvin,  291. 
Cooper,  Henry  A.,  158,  168. 
Cox,  James  M.,  169. 
Crisp,  Charles  F.:  89,  104,  110;   Speaker  of  the  Fifty-Second 

Congress,  103. 
Crittenden,  20. 
Crumpacker,  Edgar  D.,  chairman  of  the  Census  Commission, 

148  et  seq. 

Customs  Administrative  Law,  101. 
Cullum,  Shelby  M.,  chairman  of  caucus,  256. 
Cummins,  Albert  B.,  141,  257,  275. 
Curtis,  Charles :  lack  of  leadership,  259 ;  secretary  of  caucus,  256. 

Dalzell,  John,  111,  154,  171. 

Davis,  Henry  Winter,  65. 

Declaration  of  War  of  1812,  37. 

Democratic:  Denver  platform,  172;  and  Jackson,  45;  party  in- 
tegrity, 172;  platform  of  1868,  75;  progressivism,  179;  re- 
forms in  1862,  177;  United  States  Bank  investigation,  48. 

Denby,  Edwin,  169. 

Diggs,  Dudley,  9. 

Dingley,  Nelson,  Jr.,  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Com- 
mittee of  the  Fifty-Fifth  Congress,  101. 

Dinwiddie,  Governor,  6,  7. 

Direct  primary:   influence  of,  1;  moves  for,  286,  287. 

Dixon,  Lincoln,  171. 

Dolliver,  Jonathan  P,,  141,  257. 


304  INDEX 

Dred  Scott  decision,  54. 

Duane,  removed  from  Secretaryship  of  the  Treasury,  44. 

Dunn,  Thomas  B.,  219. 

Eleventh  Congress,  32. 

Embargo  Act,  36. 

Enfranchisement  of  women:  influence  of,  1. 

England,  and  War  of  1812,  36. 

Esch-Townsend  Bill,  133. 

Fassett,  Jacob  S.,  171. 

Fauquier,  Governor,  7. 

Federal  Budget,  226. 

Fernald,  Bert  M.,  262. 

Fiftieth  Congress,  281. 

Fifty-Eighth  Congress,  115,  279. 

Fifty-First   Congress,  100,   101. 

Fifty-Second  Congress,  287. 

Filibustering,  94. 

First  Continental  Congress,  10 ;  rules  of,  26,  27. 

Fitzgerald,  John  J. :  148,  171;  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 

Appropriations,  180. 
Floor  Leader:  the  powers  of,  176,  199;  responsibilities  of,  221, 

223. 

Force  Bill,  100,  101. 
Fordney,  Joseph  W.,  169. 
Fortieth  Congress,  63. 
Forty-First  Congress,  73. 
Forty-Ninth  Congress,  19,  287. 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  62. 
Fowler,  Charles  N.,  158,  160. 
France,  Joseph,  261. 
Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill,  passed,  62. 
Frelinghuysen,  Joseph  S.,  262. 
Frye,  142,  256. 

"Gag  Rule,"  91. 

Gallagher,  Thomas,  142. 

Garfield,  James,  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  74. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  20. 


INDEX  305 

Gillett,  Frederick  H.:  109,  218;  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  192; 

weaknesses  of,  245. 
Good,  James  W.,  209,  229,  233. 
Gorman,  Arthur  P.,  104,  110. 
Grant,  U.  S.,  and  House,  74. 
Grow,  Galusha  A.,  63. 
Gronna,  Asle  J.,  165,  168. 
Grosvenor,  Charles  H.,  111. 
Grundy,  37. 

Hale,  Frederick,  112,  142. 

Harding,  Warren  G. :  administration  and  legislation  of,  268; 
aftermath  of  the  Great  War,  293;  "Agricultural  Bloc,"  266; 
first  financial  estimates,  232;  first  year,  297;  and  the  House, 
243;  legislative  powers  of,  294;  naval  appropriation,  241; 
primary  system,  243;  reason  for  nomination,  189;  struggle 
for  harmony,  293;  unfamiliarity  with  House  government, 
245. 

Hardwick,  Thomas  W.,  169. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  9,  10. 

Haugen,  Gilbert  N.,  158. 

Henderson,  John  S-:  84,  97;  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  110;  re- 
tires, 112. 

Henry,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Rules,  181. 

Henry,  Patrick,  9,  10. 

Hepburn  Bill,  133  et  seq. 

Hitchcock,  Gilbert  M.,  169. 

Holman  Rule,  240. 

Holman,  William  S.,  and  supply  bills,  238. 

"Hour  Rule,"  90. 

House  of  Burgesses :  Speaker,  4 ;  trial  of  criminals,  8. 

House  of  Representatives :  committee  system  archaic,  248;  crisis 
of  March  16,  1910,  147;  development  of,  2;  downfall  of 
party  government  in,  138;  forces  at  work  in,  138  et  seq.; 
House  and  Harding,  242;  financial  estimates,  233  et  seq.', 
tariff  revision  of,  101;  growth  of,  11;  increase  in  size,  125; 
mind  of,  25;  new  era  in,  285;  new  independence  as  result 
of  direct  primary,  245;  organization  of,  205;  origin  of,  3 
et  seq,}  power  of  appropriation,  225;  progressivism  in,  246; 


306  INDEX 

reform  of,  1910,  23;  retrenches,  145  et  seq.;  rules  of  1920 
in  regard  to  Senate  and  bills  of  appropriation,  239;  surtax 
issue,  271;  three  reforms  (1911-1921),  236  et  neq.;  Wilson's 
state-of-war  influence,  187. 
Hughes,  169. 

Ingersoll,  Charles  J.,  93. 

Initiative,  referendum  and  recall,  136. 

"Insurgency,"  143. 

Internal  Revenue  Law  rewritten,  270. 

Inter-State   Commerce  Committee,   134. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  removal  of  Duane  from  Secretaryship  of 
Treasury,  44. 

James,  Ollie  M.,  169. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  9. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  39,  58;  conflict  with  Congress,  64;  direct  pri- 
mary, 286;  impeachment  of,  40,  68,  286. 

Johnson,  Hiram  W.,  257. 

Joint  Steering  Committee,  282  et  seq. 

Kansas  Industrial  Court,  263. 

Keifer,  J.  Warren,  Speaker  of  the  House,  80. 

Kellogg,  William  P.,  262. 

Kenyon,  William  S.,  257,  267. 

King,  Cyrus,  33. 

Kitchin,  Claude,  244. 

Knox,  Philander  C.,  260,  281. 

Lacey,  John  F.,  105. 

LaFollette,  Robert  M.,  141,  261,  262. 

Lawrence,  George  P.,  171. 

LeCompton  Constitution,  54. 

Lee,  Richard  H.,  9,  10. 

Lenroot,  I.  L.,  168,  169,  257. 

Lincoln,  Abraham:  admission  of  Arkansas,  64;  and  Coif  ax,  55; 

cooperation  with  Congress,  63;  and  electoral  votes,  66. 
Long,  Alexander,  defends  South,  56. 


INDEX  307 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot:  112,  142,  272,  277,  254,  256,  259,  261,  278; 

in    Senate,   188. 
Longworth,  Nicholas:  219;  political  history  of,  203. 

Me  Comas,  79. 

McCormick,  Joseph  M.,  261,  262. 

McCumber,  Porter  J.,  259. 

McKinley,  William  B.   (of  Illinois),  69. 

McKinley  Bill,  85. 

McKinley,  William:  201;  administration  of  property,  131; 
Buffalo  speech,  128;  chairman  of  Ways  and  Means  Com- 
mittee, 84;  of  Committee  on  Rules,  85;  president  pro  tern- 
pore,  21. 

McKinley  Tariff  Act,  101. 

McNary,  Charles  L.,  261,  281. 

Macon,  Nathaniel,  32. 

Madden,  Martin  B. :  169,  203 ;  chairman  of  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations, 209;  power  of,  240. 

Madison,  James:  20;  and  Clay,  34. 

Magna  Charta,  8. 

Mann,  James  R. :  145,  191,  201 ;  chairman  of  Committee  on  Com- 
mittees, 202 ;  plan  for  Committee  on  Committees,  193 ;  power 
of,  205  et  seq.;  support  of  Cannon,  162  et  aeq. 

Missouri  Compromise,  53. 

Mondell,  Frank  W-:  169,  202,  218,  219,  222;  characterized  as 
Floor  Leader,  200;  Committee  on  Appropriations,  229;  of- 
fices, 212;  Joint  Steering  Committee,  282. 

Morrill,  Justin  S.,  62,  255,  256. 

Murdock,  Victor,  160,  168. 

Muhlenberg,  Frederick  A.,  27. 

Naval  Budget,  reduction  of,  235. 
Nelson,  Adolphus  P.,  and  revolution  in  House,  158. 
Newberry,  T.  H.,  271. 
Nicholson,  Robert  C.,  9. 
Ninth  Congress,  32. 
Non-Intercourse  Act,  36. 

Norris  Resolution:  171;  adopted,  167;  revised,  165. 
Norris,  George  W.:   158,  161,  257;  revision  of  Committee  on 
Rules,  153  et  scq. 


308  INDEX 

Orr,  James  L. :  chairman  of  Committee  on  Rules,  89 ;  Committee 

on  Vacancies,  109;  as  Speaker,  54. 
Orth,  Godlove,  S.:  proposes  commission  to  replace  Speaker,  80; 

resigns  from  Committee  on  Rules,  80. 

Page,  Carroll,  S.,  278. 

Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Law,  143. 

Payne,  Sereno  E.,  Ill,  155,  158. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  91. 

Penrose,  Boies :  263,  281 ;  results  of  his  death,  261. 

Pepper,  George  W-,  281. 

Platt,  112. 

Poindexter,  Miles,  168,  169,  278. 

Polk,  Albert  F.,  94. 

Pomeroy,   Theodore   M.,   62. 

Populist  Movement,  128  et  seq. 

"Pork  Barrel  Bill,"  140. 

Porter,  Peter  B.,  37. 

Prentiss,  Sergeant  S.,  92. 

President  pro  tempore,  and  Act  of  1792,  19,  20 

"Previous  question,"  91. 

Primary,  direct,  136    (see  Direct  primary). 

Public  opinion  in  1921,  276. 

Pym,  John,  59. 

Quay,  112. 

Railroad  reforms,  130  et  seq. 

Randall,  Samuel  J. :  227;  counting  of  electoral  votes,  78;  defeat 
of  the  Force  Bill,  79;  powers  of  Congress,  78;  Speaker  of 
the  House,  77  et  seq. 

Randolph,  John,  and  Missouri  Bill,  90. 

Randolph,  Peyton,  8,  9,  10. 

"Reed  Rules"  adopted  by  Democrats,  101. 

Reed,  Thomas  B. :  12;  absolutism  of,  97;  amendment  of  House 
rules,  81  et  seq.;  describes  Fifty-Second  Congress,  105; 
dignity  of  speakership,  106-107;  humor  of,  88;  party  gov- 
ernment, 100;  Rules  Committee,  80;  as  Speaker,  84  et  seq.; 
of  Fifty-Fifth  Congress,  101. 


INDEX  309 

Reforms  of  1909-10,  115. 

Republican:  administration  in  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  195; 
Congress  of  1918,  188;  decentralization  of  power,  221;  loss 
of  power,  170;  party,  98,  199;  reorganization,  199  et  seq.; 
results  of  revolution  in  Kansas,  130;  theory  of  party  gov- 
ernment, 98. 

Robeson,  George  M.,  80. 

Robinson,  John,  7. 

Robinson,  Ransdell,  169- 

Roosevelt,  Theodore:  39;  attack  upon  Senate,  136;  and  Cannon, 
122;  letter  to  James  E.  Watson,  116;  and  railroads,  127 
et  seq.',  reforms  react  on  party,  137;  and  Supreme  Court, 
136;  Taft's  nomination,  137;  tariff,  132  et  seq. 

Root,  Erastus,  and  United  States  Bank  investigation,  41. 

"Sacred  Wednesday,"  120. 

Senate:  2;  appropriations,  239;  change  irom  conservative  to 
popular  body,  284;  effect  of  direct  primary,  274;  and  Hard- 
ing administration,  282,  291;  influence  of  the  West,  264, 
278;  an  open  forum,  91;  origin  of,  3  et  seq.',  reaction  in, 
290;  rise  in  power,  286;  and  Roosevelt,  134;  rules  of,  258; 
Steering  Committee  reorganized,  289;  ten  major  commit- 
tees, 278;  Treaty  of  Versailles,  188. 

Senatorial  domination  ended  by  direct  primary,  288. 

Seniority  rule  a  menace,  248. 

Seventeenth  Amendment,  257. 

Shackleford,  Dorsey  W.,  164. 

Sheppard,  Morris,  169. 

Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act,  101. 

Sherman  Silver  Law,  103. 

Sherman,  John,  255,  256. 

Sherman,  Roger,  20. 

"Silver  Senators,"  269. 

Simpson,  Jerry,  appointment  of  House  committees,  109. 

Sixtieth  Congress,  141. 

Sixty-First  Congress,  119. 

Sixty-Second  Congress:  172;  rules  of,  181;  special  session,  174. 

Sixty-Seventh  Congress:  211,  260,  269,  270;  break  in  Republican 
solidarity,  271;  jealousy,  253;  power  and  influence  of,  13; 
strength  of,  291. 


310  INDEX 

Sixty-Sixth  Congress,  conditions,  189  et  seq. 

Sixty-Third  Congress,  183. 

Smith,  Sylvester  C.,  171. 

Smith,  Walter  I.,  171. 

"Solid  South,"  179. 

Speaker  of  the  Colonial  Assembly,  10  et  seq. 

Speaker  of  the  House:  1;  attempt  to  limit,  32;  challenge  of 
power,  22  et  seq.;  origin  of,  3;  power  of,  199;  powers  in 
First  Congress,  26;  power  of  recognition,  86,  87,  182;  in 
Sixty-Sixth  Congress,  218;  strength  of,  11  et  seq. 

Speaker  of  Pennsylvania:   power  of,  4. 

Spooner,  Henry  J.,  112. 

Stamp  Act,  7. 

Stanley,  169. 

Steering  Committee:  202,  204,  211  et  seq.;  joint  Steering  Com- 
mittee, 253;  members  in  Sixty-Sixth  Congress,  213;  per- 
sonnel, 218;  procedure,  214;  rules  of,  212;  in  second  session 
of  Sixty-Seventh  Congress,  216;  in  Senate  of  Sixty-Seventh 
Congress,  262. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus:  55,  201,  226;  chairman  of  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  62;  Southern  Representatives,  67. 

Stevenson,  Andrew,  41. 

Summary  of  reforms  in  Congress,  288  et  seq. 

Sumner,  Charles:  admission  of  Arkansas,  64;  deposed  from 
chairmanship  of  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  92. 

Supply  bills,  237. 

Supreme  Court,  283. 

Surtax  issue  of  1921,  270. 

Taft,  William  Howard:   117,  157;   Canadian  reciprocity,  174; 

nomination  due  to  Roosevelt,  137. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  appointed  Secretary  of  Treasury,  44. 
Tawney,  James  A.,  154,  209. 
Taxation  in  Virginia,  9. 
Taylorsville,  Clay's  speech  at,  47. 
Thirty-Fourth  Congress,  276. 
Thirty-Ninth  Congress,  58,  67. 
"The  Three  Musketeers  of  Politics,"  39. 
Townsend,  Charles  E.:  169;  and  "Calendar  Wednesday,"  150. 


INDEX  311 

Treasurer  of  the  Colony,  6. 

Turner,  George,  82. 

Twelfth  Congress,  87. 

Two  party  system  of  government,  51. 

Unanimous  consent  calendar,  182. 

Underwood  Law,  90. 

Underwood,  Oscar  W.:  155,  169,  171,  183,  277;  "Calendar 
Wednesday"  speech,  148  et  seq.;  Ways  and  Means  Com- 
mittee, 174;  Wilson  regime,  176. 

United  State  Bank:  investigation,  40  et  seq.;  removal  of  public 
money  from,  44. 

Vice-President  and  Cabinet,  291. 

Virginia:  early  Assembly  of:  5,  taxation  in,  9. 

Wade,  Senator,  65. 

Wadsworth,  James  W.,  262,  278,  282. 

Washington   Conference,  270. 

Washington,  George,  9,  10. 

Watson,  James  E.:  263,  272;  letter  from  Roosevelt,  116. 

Ways  and  Means  Committee :  powers  of,  125 ;  under  Wilson,  185. 

Webster,  Daniel:  44;  and  Jackson,  39. 

Weeks,  John  W.,  169. 

West,  influence  on  Congress,  265. 

Whig    Party,    39. 

"Whip,"  duties  of,  222. 

White,  Speaker  of  the  House,  90. 

Wilson,  John  H.,  direct  primaries,  286. 

Wilson  Tariff  Bill,  104. 

Wilson,  Woodrow:  39;  characterized,  184;  effect  of  state  of  war 

on  his  leadership,  186;  presidential  theories,  184. 
Winslow,  Samuel  E.,  203. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY — TEL.  NO.  642-3405 
This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


RECEIVED 


gEC.  CIB.     NSW^'Tf 

j 

^\*®* 

^ 

MOV  il)  1973*  | 

Tovl  fi  '^T^m 


fEFDJJJ 


- 


•, "   ;  ^ 


of  SUMMER 
to 


D«r/(>d 


-  SEP^  473 


T.T>O1    4_« 


General  Library 


'ARY 


